A Retrospective on Advent of Open Source
After 24 days of sharing my open source projects (Dec 1 - 24), I wanted to reflect on this experience and share some unexpected lessons learned.
Time and Engagement 📊
Writing these posts took way more time than expected! Each piece needed careful consideration to balance technical depth with accessibility.
The most surprising part? I’m apparently terrible at predicting social media engagement. Posts I thought would resonate fell flat, while ones I almost didn’t share got significant traction. My brief career as an influencer is definitely not happening! 😅
I also really enjoyed the private messages from people who found value in these posts – impact isn’t always measured in public likes and shares.
A turning point came when I started adding memes to the posts - engagement jumped noticeably. Though as they say, correlation isn’t causation. (But the memes were fun regardless!)
The LinkedIn Algorithm Adventure 🎢
The journey had interesting phases:
- First few days: Modest engagement
- Mid-series: Peak engagement after adding memes
- Later days: LinkedIn probably flagged me as a spammer, dropping views by ~75%
- Key lesson: Creating engaging content, even about projects you know inside out, takes significant time and effort
The “How Do You Get Good?” Question 🤔
Several people reached out asking this question, and honestly, I’m a bit uncomfortable with the premise. “Good” is incredibly relative - I look up to many amazing developers just as some beginners might look up to my work.
I only have one data point: my own journey. What worked for me was simple but not necessarily replicable: passion. Or sometimes, what might be closer to obsession:
- 10,000+ hours of coding, loving (almost) every minute
- Reading my own GitHub code at night, thinking about improvements
- Literally losing sleep because my mind is racing with ideas for a project
- Being unable to let go of a problem until it’s solved
This isn’t a recipe for success - it’s just my experience. The hours weren’t a grind because I genuinely enjoyed the process. That’s perhaps the real key: finding what naturally pulls your interest and following that path.
Thank You! 🙏
Special thanks to everyone who followed along, shared feedback, or reached out privately. Your engagement made this experiment in sharing worthwhile!
Happy coding, and may your 2025 be filled with open source adventures! 🚀
#OpenSource #Programming #SoftwareDevelopment #Learning #Coding
