Hacktoberfest 2024: A retrospective

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Peter Wan

Hi fellas! It’s the end of October and by extension, the end of Hacktoberfest 2024.

For the month of October, I’ve been constantly contributing to open source projects and in doing so, I learned a lot. For walkthroughs on the issues and pull requests I had done during this time period, you can check out my other blogs below:

1. Devlog: Hacktoberfest 2024 (1/4)
2. Devlog: Hacktoberfest 2024 (2/4)
3. Devlog: Hacktoberfest 2024 (3/4)
4. Devlog: Hacktoberfest 2024 (4/4)

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the takeaways I got from participating in Hacktoberfest as a contributor.

Below, are the list of things I did that I believe helped me on my journey. I would highly recommend others to follow a similar approach!

Master Git Fundamentals

1. Learn essential git commands and workflows
2. Practice branching, merging, and resolving conflicts
3. Don’t hesitate to consult Git documentation or ask for help in project discussions
4. Keep a cheat sheet of commonly used git commands handy
   • I keep all of my git shortcuts in my .gitignore
   • And if all else fails… ask GPT or Claude.

Familiarize yourself with Searching for Projects and looking through them

1. Use GitHub’s advanced search filters (language, labels, “good first issue”, etc.) > Try finding issues from here and working with different filters:
2. Follow projects that interest you to stay updated on new issues
   • Personally, I followed projects that I have seen on YouTube (with regards to gaming) and projects whose tools I use (e.g., Microsoft Visual Studio Code).
3. Look for projects with active maintainers and study their contribution guidelines
   • Search for the keywords contribute or contributions in a repository to ensure that you follow a repository’s guidelines
   • If you don’t follow someone else’s contribution guidelines… (don’t expect them to accept your PR!)
4. Research previous issues and pull requests to see if you can find hints on how to solve your own issue.
   • For example, check out my own pull request you can see that I reference an existing pull request to back up the work I did.

Conclusion

This was just a short summary of what has been an incredible month-long journey in open source contribution. But rather than just taking my word for it, I encourage anyone reading this to get out there and dive into open source yourself! Remember: every expert was once a beginner, every maintainer was once a first-time contributor, and every journey starts with that first pull request.

Happy coding, and see you in the next Hacktoberfest!

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Peter Wan