My Experience as an Open Source Contributor in LGMSOC’21

Lets Grow More Summer of Code’21 is a 2 month long open source program which encourages students to participate in open source development.

Basically , this was my second open source opportunity in which I had the opportunity to experience the open source development of projects. After having learnt how to work on open source projects in GSSOC’21, I was thriving to practically implement that knowledge. So when I heard about LGMSOC’21, I applied in it right away to work as an open source contributor . After few days , I received the selection mail which made me on cloud nine, as this was a golden opportunity for me to fulfil my wishes of wanting to apply things I learnt practically.

The program started in June’21 with a grand opening ceremony. After the ceremony , I visited LGMSOC website and started exploring their projects. Initially, I cloned Musicophilia and Movie Streaming Website. Then I setup these websites locally on my laptop. Firstly I explored every page of the Musicophilia website and tried to figure out some issues. I saw the band page was not as attractive as other pages. So I posted the issue ‘Hovering Effects on Band pages”.By the night, the issue was assigned to me. Then I worked upon that issue the very next day and created my first pull request. This pull request got merged the very same day itself and I was so happy that I can’t explain it in words. I was in a blissful state, as my several months of learning open source and all the hard work finally bore fruit when my first pull request got merged.

Then I explored the Movie Streaming Website to find out issues. I found the heading was not looking that attractive as the whole website. So I posted the issue as ‘Enhancement of Tagline’. And the issue was assigned to me within the same day. I worked upon the issue and created a pull request the next day itself and it got merged. Again I explored this website and I found that the movie page was missing. So I posted this issue and it was assigned to me. I worked upon the issue for 4 days and created the pull request. Then I was asked to link it with other pages. So I cloned the project again and added the movie page as well as linked it with other pages. Unfortunately, there were some conflicts. I tried resolving them. I created pull requests many times by doing the same using different methods. But I was unable to resolve the conflicts. I searched for a solution to this problem on Google and YouTube.But I was unable to resolve it. Since I was having exams from next week, I created a pull request by just adding the movie page and it got merged.

After exams, I opened the Musicophilia and Movie Streaming Website projects on Github. I found that my name or profile was missing in the contributor’s section. So I posted this problem on the Musicophilia channel on discord. Then Niloy Sir told me that my local VSCode might not have been initialized with my GitHub id and name. He sent me the commands to do the proper setup in my system. Then I ran those commands on git bash and initialized my VSCode with my id and name. Then I Informed this problem in the Movie Streaming Website channel on discord. I am highly Thankful to Niloy Sir for this help.

Then, a new project DSA-Playyard was added. I opened the project and went through the issues. Then I commented to assign the ‘Count Primes’ issue to me. The next day, the issue was assigned to me. I worked upon the issue using Java language and created the pull requests the next day. I was asked to rename the file. So I did that and created the pull request again which got merged. After few days, I requested to assign the issue ‘Counting Bits of a Number’ to me and the issue was assigned to me. Then I worked upon the issue using a basic approach in Java language and created the pull request. Initially, my pull request was merged, but by the night my pull request was reverted and I was asked to do it using bit manipulation. So, the next day I worked upon the issue using the bit manipulation method using Java language and created a pull request which got merged.

This was my amazing journey of LGMSOC’21 where I got so many things to learn and explore. I am highly grateful and thankful to Praveen Kumar Purushothaman Sir, an Open Source Enthusiast for introducing me to such open-source programs in December’20. Then, I would like to thank Aman Kesarwani for organizing this program and Rohan Kulkarni and the whole team behind the program for making it worthy for me. Then I would like to have a special mention of Niloy Sir for helping me to resolve the problem and initializing my Github with my Github id and name. Lastly, I am highly thankful to Niloy Sir, Qazi Maaz Arshad Sir, Yash Sir and Ujjwal Sir for merging my pull requests and for all the learning which I have from you all throughout the journey.