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Aishwarya Mali - A Journey into Open Source

Season 7, Episode 4 | February 23, 2023

In today's episode, Dan and Bekah talk to Aishwarya about her journey as a first time contributer during the 2022 Hacktoberfest.

Aishwarya Mali

Aishwarya Mali is a front-end developer (React+XState+Redux) based in Pune, India. She loves to read!

Show Notes:

This week Bekah and Dan sat down with Aishwarya, front-end developer from India, about her first open source contributions and how her perspective on open source changed after her fourth (of ten!) Pull Request during Hacktoberfest.

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Transcript:

Bekah:

Hello, and welcome to Season seven, episode four of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. I'm Bekah, and this is a podcast that features members of the Virtual Coffee community. Virtual Coffee is an intimate group of developers at all stages of their coding journey, and they're here on this podcast sharing their stories and what they've learned, and we're here to share it with you. Here with me today is my co-host Dan.

Dan:

What up back? How's it going?

Bekah:

it is going amazing.

Dan:

Nice. Yes. Uh, so is it still 70 degrees and sunny? Where you are.

Bekah:

It is 70 degrees in Sunny. It is very

Dan:

It is sunny here. It's actually nice. I was complaining about the weather earlier today, but, uh, it is like 50, but it's sunny, which that is, uh, you know, , that's a, that's a good thing, uh, in my mind anyway. I like the

Bekah:

is nice. Yeah, sunny, just like this episode was really sunny. I felt really warm and happy while we recorded it.

Dan:

Was an awesome segue.

Bekah:

Thank you.

Dan:

Yeah. Uh oh. Speaking of sunny conversations, uh, yeah. Today we talked with, uh, , um, and yes, had a great conversation. She is a delight to talk to. Um, and we talked about a lot about, uh, open source and about her journey, you know, becoming a developer and, um, all of the amazing work she did during Octoberfest this past year. Uh, she, she topped our leaderboards. I looked it up during the podcast now I can't remember, what was it, ten nine? I think it was more than, I think it was more than we thought after I looked it up.

Bekah:

yeah,

Dan:

anyway,

Bekah:

even number.

Dan:

yeah. Yeah. Okay. Eight or 10. Anyway, she had an incredible amount of poor requests during Octoberfest and, um, yeah, she hit like her, her four or whatever that we wanted for Heover Fest really early, I think, and then just kept the ball rolling. It was really cool to see.

Bekah:

Yeah, she was a first time open source contributor and she contributed to my postpartum wellness app, and I got to work with her as a mentor this year, but she did not really need any mentoring. She was just tearing up the issues. It was so fun to watch, and she just kept going and it was, I, I felt really energized by seeing her do all of the contributions during octoberfest and during our conversation today too.

Dan:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's like she's, she has that, um, I don't know that any like thing that you lots of times want to see in developers where they, where they enjoy it a little bit, , you know, and they, they kind of keep, keep going. She, um, and, and with open source, I feel like the people that contribute often to open source, that's a pretty common thing. Um, and, you know, if you're not paid, You have to find time and, and, and do it on your own. And, um, uh, it's one of the, one of the many, many reasons I love Hector Fest because it, it, it helps people get over that initial hump of, of getting into it. And, uh, and then sometimes you get end up with people that, um, do it for, for their whole lives or whatever,

Bekah:

Yeah, right. I mean, you're really building a community at that point, right? Like in an open source community, and it can be a really great place to be.

Dan:

absolutely.

Bekah:

Well, we start every episode of the podcast, like we start every Virtual Coffee, we say our names, where we're from, what we do, and answer a random check-in question. We hope you enjoy this episode. Today's random check-in question is, who's your favorite hero? My name is Bekah. I am a technical community builder from a small town in Ohio, and I don't know the answer to this.

Dan:

Is this like fiction? Fictional. Fictional hero.

Bekah:

I'm definitely going with fictional.

Dan:

Okay, cool. Yeah, because otherwise then you'd have to like probably say your mom or your dad or something and you know, otherwise you'd feel guilty. All right.

Bekah:

I mean, but you can, if you wanna say your mom and your dad, that's fine. I'm gonna go with Wanda from, um, the Marvel.

Dan:

She's a bad guy. Bekah,

Bekah:

She's a hero in her own story, right?

Dan:

sure. So we're lots of

Bekah:

has

Dan:

people.

Bekah:

some heroic things. Or if

Dan:

not recently.

Bekah:

More fine, Sam from Lord of the Rings. Okay. Feel very boring saying

Dan:

Wise, he's a good.

Bekah:

All right. Who's your, who's your excellent pick, Dan?

Dan:

uh, okay. Ho. Hi, I'm Dan. I live in Cleveland. I, um, you know what I do and gosh, I don't know. Um, and see, I like if he had, if I had time to like really think, I probably could pull out some like interesting one, you know. But like Han Solo is the one that comes to mind, and I know, like, honestly, these answers, I'm always like making Star Wars things. It's like always the, you know, first thing I think of. But, uh, yeah, Han Solo is, my favorite because, you know, he, he,

Bekah:

a scoundrel.

Dan:

he's a scoundrel, which I like. And also, um, whatever, he didn't like set out trying to be hero, you know what I mean? But like his heart told him to do the right thing and all that stuff, which, which I like, you know? So that's my answer. I'm going Han.

Aishwarya:

hello. So my name is Aishwarya . I'm from India. I work as a front end developer. Uh, I mostly work with, uh, react and recently started with, react Native, uh, and for me fictional. Hero, are we going with like a movie star or something like that?

Bekah:

Could be.

Dan:

You could do it however you want. Yeah, I was trying to think of books and my mind went totally blank, but it. It could be anything. It's you make the rules.

Aishwarya:

Okay, so I'm not sure I remember his name, but the book is Me Before You and he sort of helps. Sir, I can't remember his name right now. And I love that character very much.

Dan:

Nice.

Aishwarya:

It's a movie plus book. Yeah,

Dan:

Me. What was it?

Bekah:

Hey, before

Aishwarya:

me before

Dan:

before you. Nice. All right.

Bekah:

yeah, I'll have to check that out. I've definitely heard about that before. And maybe we've about it at Virtual Coffee.

Aishwarya:

yes, he meets with an accident and she's sort of taking care of him and he pushes to her towards her dreams.

Bekah:

Oh, nice. Cool. That sounds awesome. We'll have a link in the show notes to that too. Um, so we wanna thank you so much for being here, uh, with us and on our season seven of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. And we always like to get started with Origin Story. So before you jump in and let us know what your origin story is, how you got to this point in your career, what is one word that describes your career?

Aishwarya:

I'd say a bit difficult or evolving. Uh, everything is changing. You get to a point where you are like, okay, so I have a hang on this. But, but, uh, at a certain point it just, uh, spans you and it is just evolv.

Bekah:

uh, that resonates with me a lot. I like that. That's a really good one. So tell us a little bit about this evolving journey that you've been on. So how did you get started doing computery things and where you are to get, and how did you get to where you are now?

Aishwarya:

Okay, so my stories. , same old school actually, I've done my engineering, uh, in computer science. And, uh, I wasn't that involved in coding back then, but, uh, then at one point, I think, I remember in my, one of my classes, uh, there was one senior who came to meet my professor again and I was facing some issues. So he was like typing right away on terminal. And I was fascinated. What he was actually doing, and he wasn't even looking anywhere. Just tapping fast, fast, fast. And I, it really hit me like, okay, this is something that I would also like to do. And it is always something that every time you do something different and new and it is challenging you at every point. So I started, uh, I was actually continuing my engineering, but I was not sure at that point that what would I actually be interested. , so during interviews and stuff, so I was also doing Java and all, but it wasn't, uh, getting into me. So at point, I, I thought maybe I'd do something different. Uh, but then I, uh, went into web development. Uh, so started out with html, fall in love with css, and, uh, then JavaScript, uh, started a. . Uh, previously I would, I was not mostly working in any kind of, uh, like logical things or something, but uh, at Venice Switch companies, when you get, uh, take home assignments, at that point I really started getting into coding, like real coding, not HTML and CSS. So that was the beginning, and, and that is me falling in love with javascript.

Bekah:

That's awesome. I love that. And so now you're doing a little bit of React native. Will you talk a little bit about like how you ended up there and the differences that you've seen between React and React native?

Aishwarya:

Okay. So React Native is, uh, I started in Hacktoberfest, I was contributing to a React Native repository, uh, and then it was just kind of, uh, that much. But then, uh, recently I've started, uh, working on it, uh, at work. So the difference mainly is that, in React you use divs and in React Native there are views kind of stuff. Uh, and that main difference being that, uh, you use React for Web and, uh, react native for, uh, iOS and Android, Android apps. So mainly. It is, uh, helpful because of, if we, if you are using a native language, it is mostly for a particular, uh, device. So it is either for Iris or either Android. But if you are using React Native, it is for both of them.

Dan:

Yeah. Do you. Having actual CSS when you're working with React Native, that's a, that's my biggest, that's always my biggest, uh, struggle when I have React native projects I'm working on is just like, this would be so easy if I could just add a style, you know, to this or whatever. Um, yeah. That's awesome. so you studied computer science and you, did you say you were mostly doing Java during, during your actual studies, or did you get into JavaScript stuff while you were still in school?

Aishwarya:

actually, Yeah, actually, uh, web development was only a subject for one semester, so it was mostly Java based things during college. And, uh, I also did some python and stuff, but it wasn't much back then.

Dan:

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's cool. So you got, uh, one, one class of, of web stuff in and that kind got, got the bug going. Yeah, I, I think that experience at, Is a shared one with a lot of people where you, somebody gets into web development by, you know, by doing h l and css and I, I, I think that I would count that as real coding, you know, personally. But it doesn't have the, the logic puzzles. Right. It doesn't have some of those pieces. Yeah. And um, and I think that there's a lot of people that get into front of development that way and then find their happy place. You know, like doing this stuff, doing react or, doing react native, um, And including myself, , you know, because you still get some of the, you still get some of the instant, uh, and sorry, if you guys can hear my, my dog is chewing on a bone behind me. So, uh, Ollie is here, uh, in the podcast Studio today. Um, but uh, what I was saying was something about react. Oh man, I was about to make an amazing

Bekah:

CML and the instant.

Dan:

Instant gratification. That's what it was. Yes. Okay. You get a lot of the front end development, you can still get a lot of the sort of instant gratification stuff. Right. And you get to like, see and mess around with the thing that you're building, which is one of my favorite parts, um, about front end. Um, but you still get to do some of the like, hard, you know, harder logic stuff too. Um, so, so yeah. That's cool. I'm, I'm always happy when people kind of have, have like found, you know, found something that they, they are enjoying and, and succeeding in. It's.

Bekah:

And you mentioned doing some React native work during Hacktoberfest, and so I wanna transition into that topic, working through Hackfest and Open Source this year. Was this your first year doing Hacktoberfest?

Aishwarya:

Yeah. Yeah, it was

Bekah:

And many pull requests did you have at the end of this Hackfest?

Aishwarya:

Actually it was nine,

Bekah:

Nine? Yeah.

Aishwarya:

to nine. I.

Bekah:

You just, you just rocked it. You just kept going. You got your four and that didn't matter. It was all of all the things that you could do. And I was super impressed by not only were you doing this for the first time, but you just crushed it. You blew it out of the water. So what was that like for you getting started with Hacktoberfest?

Aishwarya:

actually, uh, when I, uh, started, I think I was a day or two late maybe, and most of the, uh, two weeks that I've seen were almost like, oh, my, uh, two prs were a approved and accepted and all that stuff. So, and going into, I was not sure if I had even do. Two or more than two. So I went into like, okay, I'll at least, uh, learn something and maybe I'll do it seriously next year. I got into it in that attitude. But, uh, when I started actually doing it, I really loved it. It was really great experience for me. Uh, got to improve my coding skills, got to learn new technologies. And it was really very interesting and also, uh, everyone is always saying Open source, open source, but when you actually experience this, it is very rewarding.

Dan:

Yeah, I agree. And it's, and it's, it does take, and this is one, one of the reasons why I love Hacktoberfest so much, and I love like what we, what we do at Virtual Coffee, because it, it is a different approach, right? I mean, it's, you know, it's a little bit different than a situation where you're in a job and somebody tells you what to do or, or you're, uh, building your own thing and you kind of have it all in your head, right? Um, there's, there's some different steps, I think, but once. a lot of people have had that experience here. Once you get through the first couple, you know, the first couple poll requests, and, and, and you feel that reward, you know, uh, hopefully anyway. Uh, you know, and not everybody has, uh, not everybody has awesome experiences, but I think most of the time they are. And, um, that's really, it is really great to hear. And I, I wanna do, I just looked it up on our, on our roundup, but, uh, we have you at 10 pull requests for Hacktoberfest, not nine. you know, you're shorten yourself one, so made it to 10. Oh, you were top our, top our leaderboard for, uh, for total pull requests. So that's pretty awesome.

Bekah:

Awesome. So when you decided to get into Hacktoberfest, what were your thoughts on open source contributions in general?

Aishwarya:

So actually, uh, before, uh, Hacktoberfest I actually, uh, might have Googled something, but I was not sure, uh, about the repositories or where to contribute. I was not confident enough to do actually, uh, ask someone if I could work on this. But, uh, then afterwards it sort of just fell through.

Bekah:

Yeah, so that can be a really. And tricky thing for first time contributors, making sure that everybody feels supported and and finding that first issue. And it seems like that was a challenge that you found as well. Even registering a couple days later, whatever happened with that, everything gets picked up so quickly. So do you have advice for anybody that is considering getting started in open source on what to do in that situ.

Aishwarya:

so my main advice would be that, uh, you should find the good first issues or break beginner friendly issues using that tag in GitHub in my case. and you should at least try even. Uh, first contribution should not always be a coding contribution. It can also be like a document you contributing to a documentation, any typos, fixing, anything like that. So first contribution is like, you should at least try and see how it.

Dan:

Yeah, I love that. I, I, and I think that like, that's something that we, we try to push as well and it's really good advice is it's find you can find, uh, pull or you can find issues that aren't code and that can help you get started. Um, and. I've, I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, but, you know, learning too many things at once, uh, lots of times results in you, in, you know, getting frustrated or whatever. And so if you are trying to learn open source stuff, then then concentrating on something that you don't have to like learn some, a whole other thing to do. The issue is great advice. Uh, I think that's, I think that's,

Bekah:

Yeah, and I, there are more companies out there, open source companies that are creating those issues as well. I think it was AppRight who was one of this year's sponsors, had issues open for people who wanted to write blog posts, so maybe. You are not up to taking on an issue, but you can write about that. And writing about that helps other users to understand, these are the ways that we can use this. Oh, this is how you implement that feature. And I think that's a really interesting take on getting more people involved in open source contributions. But I think for me, that's something that seems. Like a good path to be able to get into a project and kind of evaluate the project too. I'm a little bit more confident writing than I am with coding, and I can see what those interactions with the open source teams are like while doing something that I'm a little bit more comfortable with. You know, one of the things that I think is impressive about what you did in Octoberfest as well was you had been working in React, but then you still took a React native issue. So what got you thinking that it would be okay to take on an issue working with a technology that you hadn't used before?

Aishwarya:

Uh, so the main. main point was that I was familiar, uh, with the maintainer and it, uh, communication was really great and, uh, I knew if, and, uh, while reading the issue, I was confident enough that I actually, it was a big thing for me, uh, to even write that message that if, can I work on this issue? But, uh, when after communicating and, uh, after, uh, The, uh, the steps were very clear of what I wanted, what I had to do. So it was really helpful in that point of point. And uh, so that helped me a lot.

Bekah:

Yeah, I like that. Knowing the maintainer can make it, again, decrease those barriers to entry. And so reaching out to a maintainer, Um, whether you know them from Twitter or in Slack or if you can add something to the discussion, it never hurts to start that conversation with them and see what the expectations are as well. So most of my open source projects are there to help people get started in open source and to encourage that. So I think, actually think in my postpartum wellness app, the majority of people who have contributed. Have not used React native before.

Aishwarya:

Yeah.

Bekah:

And so, uh, the not every open source project is created to be okay. Now my brain stopped. Um, not every open source project is created with the same mission in mind. Uh, that's what I was gonna say. And so, you know, there's different ways to evaluate open source repositories as well. And one of those ways is what does the communication look like? What are the expectations of the maintainers? And sometimes you can get that from the issues. And I, you know, I talked about this before about one of the things I learned a couple of years, was writing issues can be really hard if you wanna write a good issue or time consuming really, because you wanna help people understand. What you want. Part of the problem is a lot of times I don't understand what I want. Um, requires me to make some decisions, but if you can look at an issue and, and understand, or if you feel like the maintainer would be open to answering questions, then that can be a really great way to form that relationship and to work on something new. And uh, just one last thing in that tangent. Open source is a really great space to be able to use. Its new technology that you might not have the opportunity to use otherwise and see like, Hey, maybe, maybe you hated React Native and you thought, I never wanna touch this again. Right. Um, I don't, I don't think that happened because now you're working on React native stuff at work. But I think that having those experiences helps you to learn and to grow in a, a different way. So when you, so you went through this whole open source journey and in the beginning you weren't really sure of what to expect or what things would look like. How did your perspective change or did it change at the end of Hacktoberfest when you completed your 10 prs?

Aishwarya:

actually my, uh, perspective changed when I completed four and I, uh, was really interested in com, uh, doing more open source. Change in perspective was that I got more, a bit more confident in uh, com, uh, asking for, uh, asking two maintainers if I could work on this issue. Also, I was a bit more confident in my skills as well there at that point of time.

Bekah:

Yeah. That's great. And so you were a first time contributor, but how long have you been coding before this Hacktoberfest?

Aishwarya:

I'd say, uh, this march is going to be a three years for me working in this industry. But in, uh, initial days I was only working with html, css, and, uh, did a little bit of WordPress. So means our script is mostly like two years.

Bekah:

I think that's important to point out because we have had a lot of different contributors who have varying degrees of experience, right? And a lot of times people think that first time contributors are people who are very new to coding, and that's just not the case. You know, there are people out there that. Are interested or maybe are aware of open source, but haven't contributed. And so like finding those different levels of providing issues and support for people is, I, I think, uh, it's really important to think about like their developers at all stages of their careers who are willing to contribute if they feel supported in the way that they need supported to do that thing. So I think that it's, it's great that you jumped in this year.

Aishwarya:

Yeah, actually, uh, I had a very great support with you guys as well because, uh, in the Hacktoberfest channel, so we used to get a lot of good first issues and, uh, because of that, Also, I did not have to go out of the way to find issues. Uh, most of the time I would get it there as well. And supportive. Uh, maintainer is also a great point in this because, uh, if I'm able to communicate with, I know that, so the person in front of me is going to explain what the problem is, then it helps.

Bekah:

Yeah, I love that. And finding that community of people that are willing to support you can be really important. And I know, you know, one of, one of the things that I saw at Virtual Coffee that I really appreciated is there were a lot of maintainers out there who were willing to. Add issues for people of varying levels. And so, like you were saying, uh, in those first couple of days, those, uh, beginner issues or good first issues are really snatched up quickly. so if people wanna join in later, it can be really hard to find something. So it, it was nice to see. People asking like, Hey, I'm looking for a good first time issue. And people saying like, Hey, I'll write something up, or I have this issue, and then that way you know that you have the support of the maintainer and you know that there's a possibility for more interaction there as well. So if somebody is thinking about getting into open source now, outside of Hacktoberfest, what do you think other than looking at good first issues, how do you. I think they should get started.

Aishwarya:

So what I've been doing is, uh, recently, uh, I've been searching on YouTube videos as well, uh, when most of the people, Explain in their videos, which, which are the, organizations that help, uh, begin, that have, uh, beginner friendly issues to, for you to work on? So I've been doing that actually, and mostly Google. But in case of Google, sometimes what happens is that few of the links are broken or old. or also, uh, if it is not October 1st, I've seen that, uh, mostly everyone is not available to reply to, uh, your message if you are asking for an issue. So maybe, uh, just waiting it out is what you'll have to do at this point of time. Think.

Dan:

I think that's really. I mean, I think all that was good advice. Your last point is, is an important one I think, for people to remember because, if you're gonna be a contributor to a repository, lots of times it's because you, you know, maybe you found it like, like, like you're doing with Google or, or YouTube or, or maybe it's a package that you use or something like that. Um, and you would like to see an improvement. but what'll happen is you get all excited, right? And you know, and maybe comment on the issue or maybe try to work up a poll request or whatever. Um, and all of that stuff is in your brain, right? Because you're working on it right then. But maintainers are, especially with smaller packages or smaller projects, um, aren't, you know, in there every day doing stuff every day. And so there's like this whole context which thing that needs to happen. And, and so, um, I really appreciated how you said having some patience, you know, and like building that into your mindset because, um, because it's important and you know, everybody's doing their best. I re just, just recently had a poll request. I, I made an issue. What was it? No, I saw, I had, I had a problem. I ran into a problem, found that there was somebody else had, had the problem and wrote the issue and I was able to like, make a poll request to fix it, you know, so I made this poll request and commented and all this stuff, and then just didn't hear anything for like two weeks. And then after two weeks it was just like, got merged. , Nope, no comments, no, like, nothing. And, you know, and like, I'm like, honestly, that's cool, you know? Uh, like, the urge to go back and say, oh yeah, did you miss this email? Or, you know, please, you know, check back, all that stuff is understandable. But, um, but I, you know, everybody kind of, everybody's busy and all of that stuff, so, um, I think that's, I think that's a really good plan of, you know, making the, making the effort, but like also trying to, trying to, you know, use some patience and understand that people. Just constantly watching their, their get help notifications, you know, day and night

Bekah:

I like that tip too, of checking on YouTube and seeing where people are pointing you. I have never thought about that or heard anybody else give that advice, and I think that's really unique. So I do appreciate that and I, I would say, Along with all of the great tips that you gave. Sometimes just putting it out there into the world. I'm looking for a good first issue. Does anyone have one? Somebody might respond to that, you know? Um, because it, like the searchability is often not great for these things, uh, for a lot of the reasons that you said, you know, sometimes projects, Kind of die after octoberfest, or they're no longer being maintained. And so you try and take something on and nothing happens, and then that can be frustrating. And we definitely don't want people to be frustrated with that experience. So, so looking and seeing what the activity level is like is I think, um, really important as you, uh, navigate into open source contribu.

Dan:

I, uh, actually was I, I had wanted to call it that YouTube, your YouTube tip as well. Um, I was wondering if you. It's okay if you don't know them off the top of your head, but if you could share some of your, some of their creators, excuse me, some of the creators that are doing those videos, um, the, like that you were talking about. Uh, I would, you know, and you can send them to me after if you don't remember, uh, like off the top of your head. But I'd love to like check some of them out. Maybe we can link a couple in the, um, in the show notes, because that seemed like a really good idea. And I also had never, I hadn't heard of that and I, I think it's great. So, Yeah. Uh, I don't know if you know it or remember off the top of your head, but if you do,

Aishwarya:

Actually, I don't remember them, but I'll share the links with

Dan:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I would love that. And we'll, we'll make sure to put 'em on the show notes because I, that sounded like a really cool and interesting idea and, and a unique idea and maybe something we could get into at Virtual Coffee as well. So , we'll see.

Bekah:

what do you think some of the biggest challenges you faced during your open source contributions have been?

Aishwarya:

main is, uh, finding a good first issue and that not being more than two people who are already asking for that same issue, but I don't think I have faced it that much. And also, What I'm faced mean was, uh, the merge conflicts, when you're, uh, merging a branch or, uh, when you're creating a pull request, actually. So that was something that I found a bit difficult because, uh, I, I've been previously working with, uh, Azure DevOps. So it was, uh, there, there I used, uh, . So it wasn't like much of a terminal use. So the, this also much conflict was something that I found a bit difficult, but once figured it out, it was also a bit, uh, easier to understand.

Dan:

So wait, what was your solution? Did you end up using some command line things, or did you use different, did the GitHub UI or you know,

Aishwarya:

No, no. I ended up using, uh, terminal only. That also was the main, uh, it got me working on terminal. He.

Dan:

that. I love

Bekah:

merge conflicts. I, I have been known to like delete repos and start over.

Dan:

I, uh, no, I mean, it is, it's a. They're, they can be hairy and not fun. Um, for sure. Uh, but I love the idea of like, I, I love your approach anyway, of taking it as an opportunity, right. To, to learn something new and, and get better at something that you wanted to, like you're, uh, the senior, um, in school who was typing really fast in the terminal. You know, . That's right. You're, you're just about there. That's that's really. So, do you have any, I I might have checked out your GitHub, you know, profile just recently, but I, I saw you're working on a personal project, which looks, looks kind of cool. Uh, is that like an Instagram app? Is that like, that's just like a personal hobby project.

Aishwarya:

Uh, yeah, actually I want to explore more reactive, so I've started working on that a little.

Dan:

Yeah. That's awesome. So is it like something you just kind of came up with in your head, uh, like that? Or is it like you're following a tutorial or, you know,

Aishwarya:

Uh, no, actually I found a tutorial. So, uh, they make, so I tried first myself, then see what they are doing. So I also kind of get to know different, uh, coding, uh, types. So doing something with my style, but doing, uh, the person that YouTuber is doing his style, so combining and so I'm going that.

Dan:

That is, that's really cool. I, I, I love, like, I love seeing. people's like work. I, I've seen people work on projects like that, you know, and, and, but that's one of my favorite things about GitHub is, is being able to see like, what are, what are people like noodling with, you know, what, what are people kind of doing? And you can kind of see everybody's like project shelf, you know, like in my garage I have this just shelf of stuff that maybe I'm half done. Maybe, you know, I, maybe I used it to like do something else, or, or maybe I meant to finish it and maybe it's just something I'm currently working on, but it's like all there, you know? Um, and I like that about GitHub. I like that people kind of by default put things in public, you know? Um, like this, you know, and it doesn't have to, like, it's not ever, it's just for you, you know? It's not like a, I don't know, other thing, , whatever, you know, it is not like a thing that you're looking for contributions on for, for example, you know, but you still, it's, it's still, it's like public and it's, and it's out there and I think that's great. I think that's very cool.

Bekah:

Yeah. One of the things that I've liked about GitHub recently is the feed that you get on your main page, I guess, because if you are following people, you see the projects that they're working on or the projects that they've starred, and that's been another way that I've seen people find new. Open issues just by kind of browsing through, like, oh, that person just started this project. Let me go check that out and see what that's about. Like, oh, there's an issue that I can take on. And so sometimes you'll accidentally fall into that thing or you learn something new through that. I guess it, it's a, a feed of the people that you follow. I, um, I don't know. I just think that that feature has been really, really fun to check out lately. What are some, Ugh,

Dan:

Sorry, . I was just gonna say agreed. Uh, I, I never remember to look there cuz I just like have. Potter's bookmark, but every time I go back to the GitHub homepage I'm like, whoa, this is neat. There's so much stuff here, and then I forget about it again. But I think that's good advice.

Bekah:

Are there projects that you are interested in contributing to that you've been checking out? Ashia.

Aishwarya:

yeah, actually, uh, some projects that I've been working on, uh, during, uh, , I'm trying to see if there are any open issues. Actually, I'm not, I'm not following anyone. Or I was just, it was like a resume for me back then. Uh, but nowadays I'm trying to see star, all the starring and following each other. And now that you've said, uh, looking into all at the field, I think that will also, we are not next.

Dan:

Yeah, I'm, I'm really bad at, at doing, interacting with the social stuff on GitHub too, like the stars, you know, I, I'm sure I have some star repos, but I think at the beginning I was using them as like, I don't know, some sort of bookmark thing or whatever, and you know, like I wasn't really using it. How, how, how people use it now, you know? And I just kind of stopped. and same with following. I don't think I, well, probably I follow a couple people just cause I wanted to see how it worked, but like, I, I just always forget about it, you know? I don't, I don't know, I don't think about it, but like, I, there's so much, there's so much cool stuff that Gub is doing, um, to, and I, I think a lot of it is to, do what we're talking about, right? Is to like expose other things that other people are working on to encourage, you know, people. To jump over and, you know, help out and stuff. It is really cool. So that's gonna be my mission. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start starring and following people on GitHub more often, uh,

Aishwarya:

Yeah me too now

Bekah:

yeah, I think some of the cool ones that I've seen lately, so I've been messing around with ChatGPT a lot. We've been talking a lot about that at Virtual Coffee. Um, there have been a lot of people who have put up repositories that have like good commands, good, uh, topics. To look up different ways to approach it, resources for that, companies that are using it or AI in some way. And it's kind of been fun to use it as a resource, uh, rather than thinking of a traditional open source project. It's just a markdown repository of things. And so to be able to learn in that way too, I think is really nice. I wish that there was some way to sort, maybe a little bit better in terms. Like there's a lot of great, really great resources that are listed there on GitHub, and then there's a lot of like great code repositories. It would be nice to have a tag, this is just me talking out loud. Sorry. I, this is something that I would like to to be able to see how many people have resources that are up. And that was one of my, actually, I think that's my very first open source project that I ever. Was, I was part of a moms and tech group, and so I created a markdown repository of resources and organizations that supported moms in their tech journey, and that was, I don't know, that was fun because I got to meet a lot of new people and kind of talk through some of those issues and I, I really enjoy the conversation part. being an open source maintainer, and I know that's probably because my projects are small and I don't have a ton of people who are contributing, so I have the opportunity to do that, but I, I don't, that's how I would like to keep it, I think because I, I do enjoy being able to talk to people about their experiences and to support them in different. Are there any bigger projects that you've looked at or have you checked out any of like the React native repos that are out there?

Aishwarya:

Uh, yeah, actually I was also looking at React, uh, repository. I would like love to someday contribute somehow.

Bekah:

Yeah, it's always fun to, to see what is out there and to just like a peek and see if there's something that you can contribute to. A lot of times those ones, I think that sometimes when we get into open source, we think of those projects first. Like, oh, the big ones, you know, people always say contribute to the projects that you use every day, but those ones often require a lot of in-depth knowledge and understanding of. Everything and their code base, and I don't, I think that many of them, the issues take a long time to work through and that can be overwhelming, especially if you're trying to hit four pool requests. I think one year I was doing octoberfest and I had already spent like three hours on. an issue, and I wasn't close to being done and I was like, this is never gonna happen. I'm never going to hit four if this is what it's going to take. And I wonder if there's any information out there about the average time it takes to complete four issues into, I don't, maybe like level setting, expectation setting, but do you, what would you say on average, how long did it take you to complete an.

Aishwarya:

I think for me it took, uh, like when I started, it took me around four to five days, but, uh, the accepting part is seven days per request. So it would be more than that in that. but average time, I think, uh, it also depends on what you're searching for and how much, uh, you get to work on, but mostly I think it should be done in 10 days at least. That's my understanding.

Bekah:

Yeah,

Aishwarya:

I've seen people, posting tweets, uh, saying I've completed my third request on second or third day.

Bekah:

I, okay, so I was one of those people, I don't think I tweeted about it. It was like the second day I got the notification that I had hit my, and I think what happened was some, I had outstanding prs on some repositories, and then somebody decided that they should merge them or something because I don't know how I got those. Although I still haven't gotten my t-shirt yet, so I hope they don't revoke it. Like she shouldn't really get those prs, cuz I don't know. I don't know where they came from.

Dan:

it's

Aishwarya:

today.

Dan:

Oh, really? Today. Nice. Yeah, I got mine, uh, a week or two ago,

Bekah:

Yeah, so understanding that all of these things takes time. And then going back a little bit to what you were talking about with. Looking at the issue and seeing how well it's broken down is really important for, I, I had, uh, someone at Virtual Coffee that I was mentoring their first octoberfest as well last year, I think, and they chose something that said Good first issue and it required them to install docker and write tests and do a, a sub substantial amount coding, which I thought that's not, there's no way. that's a good first issue. I have no, I, I'm afraid of Docker. I didn't I don't want to use it. Um, maybe, maybe one day I will. It just seems scary.

Dan:

Yeah. Those things that, uh, it's like if somebody has set everything up for me, then I'm down. You know? But like, I don't, I don't want to be building my own whatever, configs and all that stuff, you know? it's a, it's another one of those tools that I'm like, well, if somebody else does all the hard work for me, then I'm fine using it.

Bekah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dan:

like, Webpack the same thing. I'm like, I don't, I don't ever want to like specifically configure this, but, uh, I'll, I'll use it if somebody really, really helps me.

Bekah:

All right. We're close to time for today, but we always, um, well, this season we're doing something a little bit different and we're asking people one word that they would use to describe themselves. So what is that one word for you?

Aishwarya:

I'd say dedicated towards what I want to achieve. And sometimes if I don't know something, then I'll like to, uh, Google it myself and try to find it instead of, uh, directly saying no.

Bekah:

Yeah. I love that idea of being dedicated to the things that you're working on. Do you have any tips or advice for people who are finding it challenging to be dedicated to what they're working on right now?

Aishwarya:

if it's in the sense of coding, then I'd say do not follow, uh, tutorials. only follow documentation. Not follow is not a correct word. Uh, just take a break, work on some projects. That is main advice I'd give my two year back self also that stop watching tutorials and, uh, trying to remember things. It just comes to you when you are constantly working on things.

Bekah:

I love. Uh, I think that, you know, it, it's really challenging to stay dedicated, but you definitely have shown that you are dedicated, and I love that you use that word here, talking about these things, especially when. You knocked Hacktoberfest out of the park with your 10 prs merged in this year. So I, I will second that. Dedicated is a good word for you and I just wanna thank you for being a part of Virtual Coffee and for coming on the podcast today.

Aishwarya:

Thank you for having me.

Dan:

Yeah. Thank you and we will talk to you soon.

Bekah:

Hi.

Aishwarya:

Hey.

Dan:

bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. This episode was produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel. If you have questions or comments you can hit us up on Twitter at VirtualCoffeeIO, or email us at podcast@virtualcoffee.io. You can find the show notes, sign up for the newsletter, check out any of our other resources on our website VirtualCoffee.io. If you're interested in sponsoring Virtual Coffee you can find out more information on our website at VirtualCoffee.io/sponsorship. Please subscribe to our podcast and be sure to leave us a review. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week!

The Virtual Coffee Podcast is produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel and edited by Dan Ott.