Overall Insights
Finding a project and issue can be time-consuming in Hacktoberfest, but spending time exploring different projects and finding the right one is a valuable experience. It's worthwhile to see different architectures and ideas from various developers. In the first week of Hacktoberfest, I found a nice repo with an excellent community. While I was looking for issues, one issue caught my attention. I asked the maintainers to assign it to me, and thankfully, my pull request was accepted. They invited me to join their Discord server, and I accepted without hesitation.
The Devil: Perfectionism
I realized the first rule of open source is to communicate proactively and write good code (not perfect code, because that takes too much time) and push it. When I started, I was cloning repos without taking action, which wasted my time. Instead of looking for advanced repos, I started searching for projects in the development stage that had bugs and needed enhancements. For the record, good first issue is the best label for finding beginner-friendly repos.
Building Network
Another positive aspect of open source projects is finding yourself in interesting communities where people discuss innovative tools and techniques, and you can gain valuable knowledge. The majority of people are friendly and willing to help contributors (I didn't expect that attitude). The only thing required from contributors is dedication and willingness to analyze the codebase.
Coding Challenge
I improved the website's theme system by adding the matchMedia() API to detect users' system theme preferences, implemented a new System theme option with its own icon, and added proper event listener cleanup with removeEventListener(). Now the website automatically syncs with OS theme changes in real-time. Also, I learned to be careful with git restore <filename> because it retrieves the file from GitHub, and local work can be lost.
Outcomes
I recently started using React. I have some frontend knowledge, but it's not very deep. Even though I'm not too familiar with all the tools, open source gives me a chance to explore real-world projects, research, and learn while writing code, which results in hands-on experience. I'm planning to use more TypeScript and will look for opportunities to practice it. Lastly, it is necessary to read README.md and contribution section carefully.