Diving into Open Source for the first time!
Tags: hacktoberfest
Published: 2020-10-26 14:41:48

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### Bonjour à tous
<!-- If you are new to the DEV community, introduce yourself and share a bit about why you joined DEV and decided to participate in Hacktoberfest this year.  --> 
Hi everyone, hope you all are doing good amidst the unprecedented times. 
### Background
I'm a sophomore majoring in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. I stumbled upon the term **open source** while my friends were discussing about it. I eventually came across Hacktoberfest from youtube. Being an absolute beginner, I decided to give it a shot and _my friends supported me as well_. This is how I participated in Hacktoberfest 2020.

<!-- Are you brand new to open source? What about coding in general? Tell us about how you got here -->
C++ is all the programming I know as of now. I started off with HTML and CSS for Web Development as a part of college club secretarials, and learnt the basics of it.
Hence, I was a bit skeptical as to how I would participate in Hacktoberfest.

### Progress

<!-- Share a bit about where you’re at in your Hacktoberfest journey. What stage are you at? How has the process been?  -->
I have officialy completed the Hacktoberfest 2020. I made more than 15 PRs and 10 of them got merged. A few days ago, I received a mail from Digital Ocean stating that I had successfully completed the Hacktoberfest 2020. **The progress has been empowering to be honest.** I learnt a lot along the way, including coding and values like patience and ettiquete.

### 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!  -->
I began with very basic PRs including submission of foundational C++ programmes. In one of the PRs, I wrote a [cpp code](https://github.com/jeremie1112/All_Programs_and_algorithms/pull/89) that prints the elements of a 2 dimensional array in a spiral manner. I also came across a repository in which we had to write a json file for the recipe of [awesome drinks](https://github.com/alfg/opendrinks). I asked a friend of mine as to what a json file meant (yes, I didn't even know what a json file was!) It took me a while to write a [ginger lemon tea](https://github.com/alfg/opendrinks/pull/843) recipe (thanks to maa's help) in a json file format. Lastly, I made a PR to a [repository](https://github.com/bislara) maintained by a senior at NIT Rourkela. A friend of mine gave his repo's reference, and after contacting him over the mail, I finally opened my [first issue](https://github.com/bislara/code-n-stitch/issues/143) on his repo. I added in a [ping pong game](https://github.com/bislara/code-n-stitch/pull/145) that I had learnt to program using Python's turtle module (pygame was too intimidating at that time :/) I was asked to add in a `requirements.txt` file, which I eventually did :)
I also learnt the **Pull Request Ettiquete** and **Writing a Good Issue**. These are so very important now that I think about open source. 
And this is how it all went! 


### 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?  -->
As mentioned above, the entire experience was very empowering. Being a **greenhorn** in open source, it taught me how much more there is to learn and how many opportunities open source provides one with. I will definately continue learning and contributing to open source! I made a really good connection with a senior from NIT Rourkela, who responded to my mail very politely and even asked for some changes on my PR. For now, I'm exploring open source all I can and learning more about data structures and algorithms in C++.
Adios Amigos!