Another year, another participation in Hacktoberfest. I love this time of year. It's getting cozy, the leaves are turning red and yellow, it's just beautiful. The perfect time to sit down in front of the laptop with a nice cup of matcha latte 🍵 and start coding.
Accessibility Contribution
Last year I came up with an idea for nothing less than FreeCodeCamp, and I was surprised, and very happy, that my idea turned into something where open source contributors can now contribute to Hacktoberfest.
Since then, Quincy Larson even follows me on Twitter himself. I mean, how cool is that 🆒.
Read more about the journey from a simple idea to something significant 👇🏽.
So of course I participated in the project again.
Also this year I wanted to add some new questions for the FreeCodeCamp developer quiz. Accessibility is, after all, the main topic I generally focus on (for those who don't know me yet), so it's only obvious that I contribute to topic-related open source projects.
When creating the questions for the FreeCodeCamp Accessibility Quiz, a particular thought occurred to me and I used the discussion section in their repo.
App improvement idea: "Divide the accessibility questions into groups with different levels of difficulty".
If you've never used this tool, give it a try. If you have something to say, suggestions or the like about a particular repository, check if they use the discussion section in their repo and start connecting with other contributors and brainstorming an idea.
My 4 PRs that got accepted for Hacktoberfest
Default landmark complementary counterpart question
https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/Developer_Quiz_Site/pull/879
HTML5 corresponding landmark question
https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/Developer_Quiz_Site/pull/878
Accessibility question about color in graph
https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/Developer_Quiz_Site/pull/864
Accessibility question about the <main> landmark
https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/Developer_Quiz_Site/pull/883
Other Contributions
I have also contributed to other open source projects, including EddieHub, Forem, and my own.
Why my own? Even though Hacktoberfest's contribution guide says to avoid working on your own projects (I think mostly to avoid getting the 4 PRs so easily), the code base of my projects is just what I need to grow and improve. I feel like this is where I've learned the most.
Also, working alongside all these great women on my projects has taught me a lot (Corina Murg 😇).
Open issue
Hacktoberfest 2023 is over, but there's still one issue I couldn't finish in time. And that is perfectly fine 😌
The sneaky open issue that didn't make it into the afterlife. 🧟🏽
https://github.com/EddieHubCommunity/BioDrop/issues/9461
I even wrote a blog post about it to seek help. Open source is there for everyone to make the web better and work as a team to improve it. So the next time you get stuck, don't worry too much and look for help anyway you can. For me, the easiest way was to write about what problems I'm facing, what I've tried, and ask for tips on how to improve the code. You can read about it here.
Even though this topic didn't make it to Hacktoberfest, I learned a lot in the process. The code base of the repository is huge. It's so huge that I really have respect 🤜🏽 for it. Setting it up locally was not easy, I had to try several times, in two different ways (as they offer in their setup guide), which took me a few days.
I have a lack of concentration 😵💫. So it always takes me longer to set up the local environment. But that's fine. The instructions were correct, it was exactly as described, even if I had problems. The main problem was, as always, my patience 🥹.
❣️ No other community is like EddieHub's community run by @eddiejaoude. It makes you feel like you are at home! I encourage everyone who wants to get started in open source to join this community 👯🏼♀️.
Famous last words 👇
I wanted to contribute to other projects as well, but time didn't let me. Cauldron, AccessibleWebDev, MUI, just to name a few, and there are several other great projects on my list.