Best way to dip your toes into the open-source community
Hacktoberfest 2023 | Are you ready?
The Beginner Guide for Hacktoberfest 2023
Hacktoberfest is a cool way to begin your journey into open-source development & win amazing prizes as well. But it might feel a bit scary if you’re just starting out or haven’t done open-source work before.
In this article, I’ll show how to get started with Hacktoberfest. We’ll talk about how to find projects, communities, brainstorming ideas, and events related to this awesome event.
What is Hacktoberfest?
Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open-source projects, their maintainers, and the entire community of contributors. Each October, open-source maintainers give new contributors extra attention as they guide developers through their first pull requests on GitHub.
- from GitHub
Hacktoberfest is a special event that celebrates open-source. It takes place in October, which is why it’s called ‘Hacktoberfest’ — the name sounds like ‘October.’
Open-source software is like the building blocks of many computer programs we use every day. These programs are made by people and groups who share their work with the world. They do this so that anyone can use, change, and improve the software, with the help of a big community of developers from all over the world.
Hacktoberfest is a whole month dedicated to helping out with these open-source projects. Whether you’re new to this or have some experience, it’s a chance for you to join in and make a positive difference in the open-source community.
Why Contribute to Open-Source?
It’s really quite simple and a lot of fun.
Yes, getting involved in open-source is enjoyable,
and it can bring you some great benefits:
- Professional Experience: When you contribute to projects that people, companies, or organizations use, it’s like gaining professional experience. Here’s what you get:
- Project Management Skills
You’ll learn how software developers create and manage projects, release new versions, fix bugs, make improvements, and document their work. It’s interesting to see how they work together. - Understanding Real-World Use Cases
By working on projects used in the real world, you can learn about the actual challenges and needs of users and industries.
2. Skill Development: This is the best part! Your learning and skills can take off when you contribute to open-source projects and work with their communities. You’ll have the chance to:
- Solve Various Problems
Open-source projects cover all sorts of applications, industries, and complexities. This helps you understand different types of code beyond your regular work. - Real-World Experience
This is crucial for students and anyone looking to change careers. Open-source projects are often complex and serve real-world purposes. When you work on them, you face challenges similar to what you’d encounter in a professional setting. - Collaboration and Teamwork
You’ll collaborate with experienced developers, UI/UX designers, and other professionals. This teamwork will teach you how to work effectively with a team, improve your communication skills, and give you fresh ways to solve problems. - Enhance Your Portfolio and Resume
Every time you make a contribution to open source, like submitting a code change, you gain new skills. Plus, you have real examples to show how you’ve applied those skills.
3. Learning from Fantastic Mentors: Yes, you’ll meet people who can guide you, assist you, and mentor you in many areas. These are the folks who can make a lasting impact on your career.
4. Networking Opportunities: In these communities, you’ll find people from various backgrounds who can offer career advice, chances to collaborate, or even recommend you for job openings.
By simply working on open-source projects, you can learn a lot and get a chance to show your skills. This is a fantastic way to improve your career and what you know. Some great open-source companies or organizations might even offer you a job!
How to Participate in Hacktoberfest 2023?
First of all, I forgot to mention this: this year No T-Shirts + Swags Pack, Instead the first 50,000 people who complete the Hacktoberfest Challenge will have a tree planted in their name in Tree Nation.
To participate you have to have a GitHub or GitLab Account.
Then,
- Step 01: Visit Hactoberfest.com and register via your GitHub/GitLab account.
(Register anytime between September 26 and October 31) - Step 02: Pull requests can be made in any GitHub or GitLab hosted project that’s participating in Hacktoberfest (look for the “hacktoberfest” topic)
Note: You have to carefully check whether the relevant repository has the Hacktoberfest tag and is registered for Hacktoberfest 2023. Most of the time, if a repository is registered for Hacktoberfest 2023, they will also include the Hacktoberfest2023 tag. Otherwise, it can be an old one.
- Step 03: You need to submit 4 PRs/MRs (Pull Requests/Merge Requests) for 4 different repos that have ‘hacktoberfest’ tag.
- Step 04: After you have submitted the PRs/MRs, the repository owner should first merge those PRs. Then, you will have to wait for about a week to see whether your contribution is accepted or not by the Hacktoberfest team.
Note: You should submit your PRs/MRs between October 1 and October 31. After October 31, The hacktoberfest team won’t accept any PRs that you have submitted.
It’s highly recommended that you submit more than 4 PRs/MRs to different repositories, At least 6 PRs/MRs. This is because if one or a few of your PRs are not accepted by the Hacktoberfest team, you may not be able to complete the Hacktoberfest challenge.
If you complete it before 50,000 others do, You will have a tree planted in your name through Tree Nation as a contribution to nature.
If you are able to do so, this is what the Tree-nation profile looks like,
Everyone who completed the challenge will receive a Digital Reward Pack!
Who can complete this Hacktoberfest Challenge?
Even If you are a beginner-level computer science/IT student or a novice programmer, you can participate and complete this challenge.
There is no need for prior experience or expertise in the field!
Even if you only know HTML, that’s okay; you can still complete this challenge. There are plenty of open-source Hacktoberfest-accepted, beginner-friendly repositories out there…
So, How do find them?
You can use this tool to find them -> https://goodfirstissues.com
As shown in the screenshot above, select ‘Hacktoberfest/Hacktoberfest2023’ in the Issue Label, and then you can further filter repositories by programming language to find them easily…
Happy Coding…!
