Spoiler: I added links to the repositories I got my PR's this year 😄

My comment on the article below got a bit out of hand.

Hacktoberfest Completion Thread

dev.to staff for The DEV Team ・ Sep 30 '19 ・ 1 min read

#hacktoberfest

I started typing and typing and all my excitement that has been with me ever since I completed the 4 PR's yesterday is still here, and is not going away.

I love how this challenge became so much more than "I'm here for the t-shirt". It inspired me to learn more, keep at it and I might even say I am proud of myself. (This I barely ever say).

Here is my comment from the post. I'll add to it a bit. This will hopefully make it easier for you to read.

I did it! This is actually the second year that I join Hacktoberfest. Last year I was a real noob, a few months into my first developer job and just stoked I managed to get a GitHub account, not get too lost there and completed 4 pr's (how, I have no idea anymore). But during last year, I was always a bit hesitant to wear the awesome shirt I got, because I felt like I didn't really earn it. (imposter syndrome much? The 🐞ladybug podcast ladies told me about this, silly me. Anyhoe, if you haven't yet, go listen to their podcasts!)

This Hacktoberfest I set some goals for myself.
1) I wanted to use GitHub desktop to do a pull request and
2) I wanted to really contribute to at least one open source project.
I achieved both these goals and along the way learned even more, and got more exciting about coding and learning and basically this path I am on since I started this all about 2 years ago.

While achieving goal 1, I found this great first timers repo.

firstcontributions / first-contributions

🚀✨ Help beginners to contribute to open source projects

Which includes a tutorial on how to use Visual Studio Code (which I had just decided to make my go to editor a month or so ago) in combination with GitHub like this. Mind blown, I had no idea. Now I learned this and I did all the other hacktoberfest PR's this way.

Then I found a repo that was just awesome and fun. We are making a CSS Zoo.

xaca / css_zoo

Proyecto para recolectar código en html y css para crear imagenes de diferentes animales

I really love this project, it's easy for beginners and super friendly and fun. I translated the Readme file to Dutch (voor de Nederlandse lezers, ik heb een typfout achter gelaten zodat je deze kan fixen met een PR ;)) and added an animal too.

That does leave my goal number 2.. Really contribute.. I don't know why but there are no Hacktoberfest events here in the Netherlands this year (maybe next year I should organise one myself.. Goal for 2020?!). That is why I went to Dusseldorf, Germany yesterday for a Meetup from a React group who did have an event. Got up early, drove east and I am so happy I went. I met a lot of inspiring people, made friends and one 'gave' me a bug he found for my last PR in this repo:

tech-conferences / confs.tech

List of tech conferences: JavaScript / Design - CSS - UX / Ruby - iOS - Android - PHP - Data - Devops and more.

where I also had my first experience with React and Typescript. Goal 2, check! But not only that, I have been meaning to learn React, so this is great! Now I have an example project I can learn from, and I already contributed a bit. 😄 Even though I 'only' fixed a sponsor picture in the footer, I am super excited about it!

Hacktoberfest 2019 was already amazing, teaching me new things, I met so many super friendly people and got inspired to push myself and get out there. Thank you @digitalocean and @devteam, thanks a lot.

But Hacktober is not over yet! Now I want to see how I can maybe help others, any questions other beginners have, I am happy to help! 👋

Now I was just thinking, writing this post now, I am learning how to write and edit a post here using Jekyll front matter. Another thing I am learning this Hacktober 😄 The learning never ends!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go put on my hacktobershirt from last year and wear it with pride 🏳️‍🌈

PS Will you go and make a CSS animal to add to our zoo?! 🐴🐍