Mission Hacktoberfest 2020 Accomplished!
Tags: hacktoberfest, opensource, github, digitalocean
Published: 2020-11-08 06:44:42

### Introduction
Hey there! My name is Ronan D'Souza. I'm a Software Engineer based in Goa, India. My day job involves mainly backend development (using Java), but I enjoy learning and working with a wide variety of technology stacks.

It's been about 10 months since I've joined the DEV platform. I randomly came across this platform while exploring some tech-related articles. I'm really glad that I did, and regret not finding it earlier. DEV has helped me explore new ideas, technology trends, learn about open source projects, and so much more. I've always wanted to give back to the open source community, but never really knew where and how to start. Being a frequent reader of DEV posts, I came across quite a few posts towards the end of September, on [Hacktoberfest 2020](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/). I immediately realised that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to begin contributing to open source.
 
### Background
I've been coding in Java, Python and Javascript for quite some time and have also been a consumer of open source. I am no stranger to open source, but I can't say that I've made any worthwhile contributions; I only had a couple of [Pull Requests](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests) (PRs) to repositories such as first-contributions, etc.

### Progress

<!-- Share a bit about where you’re at in your Hacktoberfest journey. What stage are you at? How has the process been?  -->
My open source journey began with Hacktoberfest 2020 and I managed to get my first 4 PRs merged by mid-October. It was exhilarating and I continued to explore more projects to which I could contribute. By the time Hacktoberfest 2020 came to an end, I managed to land a total of 8 PRs :smile:

### Contributions

<!-- This is where you can list the contributions you made and explain why you chose the projects you did. Don’t forget to add links!  -->

* {% github edent/SuperTinyIcons no-readme %}
My first few contributions were to this "super" cool SVG icon repository.
I had created the following PRs to close some issues for icon requests. 
{% github https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/pull/431 %}
{% github https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/pull/441 %}
{% github https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/pull/450 %}
{% github https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/pull/465 %}
{% github https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/pull/467 %}

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* {% github https://github.com/taniarascia/takenote no-readme %}
My next contribution was to this simple yet elegant note-taking web app.
I worked on a feature request for adding an option to toggle line numbers in the note editor.
{% github https://github.com/taniarascia/takenote/pull/404 %}

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* {% github https://github.com/thedevdojo/tails no-readme %}
I've also recently started working on a side-project in Gridsome, Tailwind CSS and so I felt that contributing a new component to the _Tails_ library would be a fun way to get more exposure to this utility-first CSS framework.
I worked on a modal rating component and created a PR. You can also check out the component [here](https://devdojo.com/tailwindcss/playground?component=modal-rating).
{% github https://github.com/thedevdojo/tails/pull/250 %}

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* {% github https://github.com/buttercup/buttercup-desktop no-readme %}

Lastly, I fixed a minor UX-related issue for this multi-platform password vault.
{% github https://github.com/buttercup/buttercup-desktop/pull/953 %}

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### Reflections
<!-- Overall, how has your Hacktoberfest 2020 experience been? If you’re a first-timer, will you participate again? What have you learned? Have you made any interesting connections? What is your next step in open source?  -->
On the whole, Hacktoberfest 2020 was a fantastic experience. I couldn't have found a better way to kickstart my open source journey. Not only did it help improve my skills of understanding and analysing code written by other developers, but also, introduced me to a good lot of interesting and innovative projects, and more importantly connected me to other devs all around the world. This was my first Hacktoberfest but will definitely not be my last. I will surely continue contributing to open source the same way and I'm looking forward to Hacktoberfest 2021.

### Acknowledgments
Thank you [DigitalOcean](https://dev.to/digitalocean), [DEV Team](https://dev.to/devteam) for this awesome event.

Also, a big thank you to the authors/maintainers of the repositories that I have contributed to, for their suggestions and reviews.
@edent, @taniarascia, @perry_mitchell, @bobbyiliev

Well, if you've reached here, I really appreciate you taking the time to read my first DEV post. Thank you!