The Hectoberfest

Hactoberfest

A Hactoberfest takes place in October where coders are encourages to churn out a set amount of Pull Requests in the month. And a Pull Request is essentially a contribution made to the community. It is an interesting opportunity set to help motivate coders to take an active part in the open source communities in general. I certainly enjoyed the chance. This blog is dedicated to the Hactoberfest and acts as my index to my contributions and associated blogs.

That Index I was talking about...

• A failed attempt that will be revisited and its blog
• Rocketfuel and Zinc and its blog
• Protein Powder Realism and its blog
• A lesson on .308 and its blog
• A tribute to Hannibal and its blog
• Awl-pike with a weight issue and its blog

The Good

I have made five pull requests, contributing to open source programs for the first time. In many ways, this is my dream come true; just 3 years ago, I never even thought this to be something within my power to do. I was always a consumer. Now, I have [contributor] tag next to my name in some of the program that I actually use or play.

The Bad

This exercise reminded me of a TEDTalk by Daniel Pink where I was first introduced to the candle problem. As the deadline loomed, with the prospective of getting the t-shirt dwindling as others completed their 5 pull requests, I was more and more attracted to questions that had clearly defined goals. Other tasks that I would have found more interesting were not only less enticing but was becoming more challenging to think through. At the end, my interests were trumped by a mere t-shirt. Was that good? Well, these were tasks that had to be done by somebody, so my contributions weren't in vein. Still, I am less proud of my work than usual.
By next Hecktober, I wish to be more familiar with some interesting group sufficiently so that more interesting questions would be within my grasp of understanding to comfortably do them during the month period.

The Weird

I learned more about guns, zinc, protein powders, and horrors of eating virtual human flesh than before. I hope some of the information would be of some use in my life. I hope some of these information will never be revisited.