Hacktoberfest 2024 - The Antiguide
Saurabh Rai
Posted on October 8, 2024
Finally, we're so back... And it's that time of year again!
🎶 Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the wa— 🎶 🎅 Saaanta Cla— 🎶
Wait, hold up, wrong holiday. This one:
Cue dramatic open-source music!
And once again, the fall season is here. Ah, yes, it reminds me of:
🍁 Cozy sweaters, warm drinks, and… 💻 …a fresh wave of PRs to review!
So, Hacktoberfest
So, Hacktoberfest is back! Back Again!
To save you some time, let me point you to a post I wrote last year:
If you're curious about why you should contribute and the benefits, this guide has you covered. It's packed with insights on how open source can seriously boost your skills. 🎯
What not to do in Open Source
A lot of conversations focus on what to do in open source: contributing, raising PRs, merging PRs, creating issues, and joining discussions. However, one topic that rarely gets attention is the challenge maintainers and developers face when merging PRs. This year, we've already seen some wild situations arise around that process.
Spam PRs
Spam PRs have become a growing issue. With the rise of initiatives like Hacktoberfest, where students and young developers are encouraged to contribute to open-source projects for rewards or recognition.
While the intention behind such initiatives is good—promoting contributions and encouraging people to get involved in the open source community—there’s an unintended consequence, ”An influx of low-effort or irrelevant PRs.”
Image source: X/Twitter
Why SPAM PRs Are Problematic:
Waste of Time for Maintainers: Maintainers are already juggling multiple responsibilities. Having to sift through and review meaningless or trivial PRs takes away time they could spend on meaningful contributions.
Dilutes the Value of Open Source: Open source is built on the principles of collaboration and quality contributions. SPAM PRs dilute the integrity of this ecosystem, shifting focus from quality to quantity.
Slows Down Progress: Spam PRs create bottlenecks, making it harder for maintainers to prioritize real contributions.
You can read a similar discussion here
Express JS - A paricular case of spam PRs
This year, Express.js faced a tsunami of PRs, sparking an interesting debate across open-source communities and YouTube channels. The flood of pull requests raised concerns about the balance between encouraging contributions and maintaining the quality of the project.
I’ll share some posts with you so that you can navigate this further.
A really cool guide to avoid Spam PRs in GH
While sifting through the sands of the internet, I found a really cool guide.
What should you be focusing on?
Learn something interesting that’s worth your time. You’ve got 31 days to contribute, and it only takes 4 PRs to pass the Hacktoberfest challenge. Why not use this opportunity to dive into something new and level up?
And understand that while you’re getting some cool t-shirts, it’s about the journey in itself as well. Skills and knowledge stack, looking forward in time, the t-shirts, stickers, and bottles will face the test of time. It’ll all fade. You will be having pot bellies and will face a different set of concerns growing up. It'll be very dreary.
But what won’t fade? The knowledge and skills you pick up along the way. They stack with time, giving superlinear returns. So, let’s focus on what really matters:
Building up skills that keep paying off long after the swag is gone.
What am I working on?
I’m working on Resume Matcher. Ever since last year, I’ve been making it work and fully public. Resume Matcher has gone through some changes. I’ve got papers full of diagrams on how I will be adding more features to It. Recently, I’ve started working on it as well.
If you’d like to be part of a community, hop on.
Here’s it on GitHub. We’re nearing 5K stars; give it a 🌟 to bookmark it for the next release.
Thank you for reading, I’ll be posting about some cool projects next week. Till then keep working, set the roof on fire. Greatness is coming.
Posted on October 8, 2024
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