How I started my Open Source journey
I am Aparna, a Software Engineer with about a year of experience in Python development. I always thought contributing to Open Source Projects was beyond my reach, so I never even tried to make one. Thanks to my manager Ankit Agarwal who introduced me to the Open Source world.
While I was building a validation framework using a package called pyvalid for a use case at my work, I came across an issue with outdated version of one of the dependent packages. The quicker workaround would have been to ignore the warning and do a force install in our systems and pipelines. But my manager suggested me to submit a patch updating the version number to the upstream package and I did as he said. Little did I know that I was making an OSS contribution. Two days later, when the author of the package accepted my code and released a new version, it hit me. I had contributed to an Open Source code and thousands of other people would be benefited from my fix. That sense of happiness and satisfaction is inexplicable.
How I got here
Since then, I developed interest in Open Source. I spent some time daily to go through articles, talk shows and other repositories where I could do more contributions. That's when I found out about hacktoberfest. I am still not sure whether it was the eagerness to win the limited-edition T-shirt or the excitement of getting to explore more open source repositories, but it triggered immense motivation in me. I immediately registered myself to the challenge and here I am after successfully completing it.
My Contributions
About my Hactoberfest experience
This was my first time participating in Hactoberfest and I must say it was an amazing experience. Hactoberfest 2020 took me all the way from bug fixing to adding new enhancements, with lots of learning and growing on the way. It was truly like a ray of motivation for me. The Discord Server community help was also very helpful and the overall process was perfectly organized.
Reflection
I would definitely like to participate again next year. Till then I will keep exploring and contributing more to Open Source. I recommend everyone to do the same. If you are new to Open Source, do not worry. Start small, like fixing a typo or adding documentation to any project. Just start with getting used to the environment. Just dip your toes in the ocean of Open Source and you will feel the urge to dive and swim in it forever.
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