My first open source contribution

In the following article, I will share my story about my very first open source contribution and how it changed my view towards open source projects.

Not so long ago I had the following thoughts about it:

“What do you mean, someone works on someone’s project for free? Why would they ever do it?”

The very cheap way of thinking, right? Luckily my opinion changed a month ago.

It all started somewhere in the middle of December last year. I was browsing through Reddit looking for some advanced JavaScript learning resources, and all of a sudden new post appeared — It was the link to the freshly opened repository on Github called 30-seconds-of-code.

A curated collection of useful JavaScript snippets that you can understand in 30 seconds or less.

Once I opened it there was about 20 or so JavaScript snippets. I liked the idea of the project and decided that I should write one snippet for it. 30 minutes later I PR’ed it. Within 5 minutes I got feedback from @chalarangelo saying it is a fantastic addition to his project. At that time the project only had about 100 stars on Github. I found it addictive and have decided to write few more snippets for it.

Fast-forward day or two the project made it to the daily trending section on Github front page with the constant increase in stars. @chalarangelo invited all collaborators to join project’s Gitter channel where we would discuss new ideas for 30-seconds-of-code. Soon after that he formed core team and asked me to join. I was more than happy to join it and get full access to the repository.

I tried to make daily commits despite having the ton of stuff to do for school. I felt like the project is mine and dedicated time each day to review new PRs, write useful snippets, fix broken ones and discuss fresh ideas on our Gitter channel.

project’s website

We were continually top trending repository on Github for nearly two weeks and made it to top repositories of the December. We have reached 15k stars on Github. It was a grand achievement for our team and a great addition to my portfolio.

Conclusion

While working on 30-seconds-of-code, I have met new friends who kindly shared their knowledge with me. I have learned a lot of new stuff regarding web development and JavaScript in general. I couldn’t be more thankful for it.

After all, not so many people these days share their expertise that generously.Also, any feedback on my article would be appreciated as this is my first ever publication.

My first open source contribution was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.