I always ponder about how to get into the open-source world. People are talking about open source and Its benefits like improving coding skills, learning clean code, team collaboration, job opportunities…etc. In order to contribute all you want is a few git commands, a programming language you are interested in, and minimal usage of GitHub.
My journey starts when the arrival of the Hacktoberfest event in 2022. This event is conducted by Digital Ocean annually in the month of October. Their main motive is to make a contribution to open-source as a part of your life.
You just need to make 4 contributions to any valid GitHub repositories. If it’s successful and you will win a t-shirt or a tree to plant. The choice is yours, you can choose either of these options. They will ship that to your country without any extra penny. And if it’s a tree. It will be planted for you.
Besides code contributions, you can do low-code or no-code contributions as well. Such as writing or improving documentation, translation, testing…etc. This was a new thing in 2022 Hacktoberfest because, in the last year's event, they didn’t bring this low-code and no-code contribution. So this is a good opportunity for those who have less experience in the technical field. You can learn more about low code contribution here.
Before Hacktoberfest, I occasionally made some small contributions. My first contribution was fixing a typo in 30 Days of Javascript by Asabaneh. I also contributed to a fitness website called Fitnezz. Which is an HTML website. As a beginner programmer, you don’t need to get advanced in order to contribute. If you know HTML and CSS that’s enough to contribute. Open source is not only for Building real-world projects. It’s also a way for learning and sharing what you know.
While participating in Hacktoberfest I contribute to the project called MAMOMIA. Which is a food-ordering website made with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I made four pull requests (contributions) there. Which was a great experience for me. As a reward, I got the t-shirt which will eventually ship to my country.
Hacktoberfest is a great kickstart for me to start my open-source journey. After that event, I started to contribute to some projects. This year I will contribute as much as I can. So that I can improve my coding skill, network with people, and get job opportunities as well. If you are interested in open source, don’t wait for the next Hacktoberfest. Just learn the basics of git and GitHub and start contributing now.
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Originally posted on rabeeh.tech