This week I started working on the issues I picked on GitHub, one in JavaScript and the other in Java. In this essay, I would relate my experience this week on how to spot possible solutions for specific things in the projects I picker out.
Highlights 🍒
One of the first projects I started to work on was with Material UI, a library to work with React components for faster and simpler web development.
My specific issue was that after selecting a year in the Static Date Picker component the page scrolls down a bit. The problem was not hard to recreate, the difficult became after: wherein the code the problem was.
With help of my mentors, I started to use the debugger tools in the navigator to tackle the problems by using breakpoint and the React Developer Tools. After many days, guesses were made. And particulars things started to show up as well, this issue only happens on particular dates and also is present in other Calendar and Timer components. So the problem became harder and harder.
Another issue was with a project called OpenDesk. OpenDesk is an open-source project for helping organizations optimize office desk utilization.
In this project a worked with micro-services using Spring Boot. Specifically, I worked with creating another endpoint and its respective functions in the controller and the services.
How I was trying to contribute 👾
In the first project, I was trying to contribute by getting rid of a specific bug that affects at least two components in the library. The other project was a little more about a new feature or enhancement.
It is more difficult to work with bugs, I am not going to lie. You need to find the source of the problem, and many times it is not so obvious. You need to have a lot of pf patience if you really want to help with bugs.
Working with enhancement is a little tricky as well because you would have many doubts about your implementation: Is it correct? Am I doing what the specifications told me to?
For both types of problems, I think patience and communication are key. Sometimes the solution is not what they expected, and that would happen many times. So you need to keep working on making the right contribution.
Any positive or negative results 💣
One negative aspect is that I think I had reached a block in my mind on trying to solve the Material UI problem. I thought I spot something that actually worked, and the bug actually is not showing anymore. But as I encounter a conversation with the maintainers the solution may not be the correct one, so I would keep working this week and finding the right solution.
I really positive result I encounter is that I was able to join a community on the second problem (OpenDesk). By joining the Slack community my doubts were solved more quickly, even with a time zone difference.
Next steps 📈
I think that for my first week of actively working in the Open Source Community it went pretty well. Hopefully, I would be working on some new issues and having some merged pull requests. Of course, there is room for improvement, and always will.
