Merrier Days of May - My first pull request

Here, In this write up I talk about my first pull request!

When I got myself enrolled at college I saw many of my seniors involved in open-source communities. I hardly understood initially what it was but I had a fantasy to try my hand on this. Will not go in-depth defining it but yes I know what it’s significance is and why is it so important. Open source drives the world.

I had a fear of doing wrong in public or asking bad questions and so I was dealing with some major personality issues that I figured must be resolved as this was hampering my learning process. I like to code.

I started admiring the power of my keyboard and all this happened during this quarantine period as I isolated myself from elements that kinda freaked me out, pulled me back from giving my best, and started discovering newer possibilities of how to make my life more interesting.

Thursday, 23 April

I am learning web development.I like JavaScript. It never bores me. I am thinking about making some projects(which ended up in a To-Do-App). I am getting inspired by my connections on LinkedIn as results for Google Summer of Code were out. I remember I took a look at the organisation list, found another alien world with no idea of how should I make myself a place in this world.

Friday, 1 May

I saw a video on “How open source changed my life” somewhere. I felt that I should write some real code now and see how actual systems work. At one point you get bored of just solving some tricky questions and not able to get the point where to use them. So I messaged one of my respected Seniors Rahul Jha, like a layman asking him about some tips which he could lend me so that I could grab some open-source vocabulary. He lent me a ton of his advice and mentioned: “It may be tough but stick to it”. I started googling the words that he made in conversation over chats .”Good first issues” is something that I learned by heart in that conversation. Thank you for all your wise words.

Saturday, 9 May

I was going through AMU-OSS slack channel. I saw a message on #general from another respected senior Prateek Jain with its first line stating “Another Good-first-Issue”, that was it. I almost pondered on that message for about 15 minutes thinking should I or should I not?

My typical behaviour before I think it’s not the correct time and let things go.

Thankfully this time I was motivated somehow and with all my will to do something I pinged him asking if I can work on this issue? (Proud of myself I did!)

He was generous enough to lend me another bunch of tips and ethics to be followed. He worked with me guiding me for about the next 10 days. Answered all my layman question, mentioning everyone do ask them once in a lifetime so that I would feel free to ask him my doubts and not hesitate. Thank you for all your guidance and wise talks.Thank you for teaching me how to write an imperative pull request, commit messages and lot more.

Saturday, 16 May

I did not sleep at night on 16 May as I was determined to finish work that was due for my second pull request.This happened after I watched “The Social Network” and came to know that Facebook was built in just 43 days! So I worked.

Sunday, 17 May

I got my two pull requests merged though they were extremely mishandled by me. I did chunk of mistakes but I have no problem with it I learned a lot . I overcame my biggest fear of not questioning my dilemmas and lived my fantasy of contributing open-source earlier than I expected and I am loving it. I hope my journey in my new alien world goes sound and fruitful.

What I have learned is that there is nothing like getting back on track. It is always a whole new track in life and we should be prepared for whatever life throws at us.

Quoted these lines from Michelle Obama’s documentary “Becoming” that I watched during My Merrier days of May.

7 July 2020

Today I am redoing this blog. I have seen a huge improvement in myself. From not able to understand words like commit, push, pull etc Now I actually understand workflow of various open source projects. I am not doing any significant contributions lately. I realised I first need to brush up my skills, learn about things that intrests me and then move ahead. This is what I am doing. Let’s see what life throws next!

Signing off! This blog was orignally published on Medium. You can check it here.