First contribution to open source, hacktoberfest !
Tags: hacktoberfest, opensource
Published: 2020-11-08 17:06:34

---
title: First contribution to open source, hacktoberfest !
published: true
date: 2020-11-03 09:08:00 UTC
tags: hacktoberfest, opensource
canonical_url: https://sarahabd.com/blog/first-contribution-hacktoberfest/
---

First participation, first contribution to open source. Yeah !

Yes, I finished my first the Hacktoberfest challenge, thanks to Digital Ocean, Dev.to and Intel. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just check [this](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/).

I always wanted to contribute to an open source project. But there always seemed to be obstacles: first thoughts:

- Which project should I choose out of the ocean of possible repositories?
- How can I make a good pull request for a project?
- Issues usually seem to need specific understanding of how the projects develop
- …

Yeah, I know what your are thinking: _she might be crazy_ or maybe just _I feel the same_.

I think it’s normal to think whenever you use a good open source project, you want to contribute to it in the future. Open source is incredible. There are so many projects that are used by so many people.

I have so much respect for open source project maintainers because many or maybe most of our personal or professional projects would fail without them.

Hacktoberfest is one of the best way to start contributing to open source projects. Their site lists an extensive resources and provides information for contributing regardless of whether you a beginner or a seasoned developer. And if you follow the specific CONTRIBUTING.md for in the open source repository, you can’t be lost (normally).

Don’t hesitate to reach out to the maintainers or other contributors to ask questions if needed, as well as checking labels, and spending some time carefully reading issues.

If you’re a beginner you can check start by checking this link which will suggest some good things to get started with:

- [http://issuehub.io/](http://issuehub.io/?label%5B%5D=good+first+issue)

Even if the Hacktoberfest has finished this year, now is still a great time to make your first contributions.

I contributed to 2 projects:

- {% github https://github.com/inspirezonetech/TeachMePythonLikeIm5 no-readme %}
- {% github https://github.com/inspirezonetech/TeachMeBashLikeIm5 no-readme %}

This was my first Hacktoberfest event and I have loved this experience. I can’t fully explain but the satisfaction that comes from contributing to something that can be useful to others feels great. It’s also time to discover other projects, by searching or through people who share their experiences and learn new things, of course.

I will continue to contribute ❤️

Unfortunately I didn’t officially complete the Hacktoberfest challenge due to an ”[intented behaviour](https://github.com/digitalocean/hacktoberfest/issues/724)” which now prohibits certain repositories from being eligible.

So just beware, if you have participated this year and your PRs are still in review, be careful, the flaw can still happen to you. Fum explain all just here.{% post https://dev.to/funbeedev/check-your-hacktoberfest-profile-a-flaw-could-have-reversed-your-completion-of-the-challenge-without-you-knowing-it-2kg6 %} Regardless this is less important than having first taken the plunge into making contributions to open source projects — which is really the thing at the core of Hacktoberfest.

See you maybe next year!