Introduction

Open source has always fascinated me, and I finally took the step to
contribute! Recently, I made my first contribution to Apache Doris, an
open-source organization. In this post, I’ll share what I did, the
challenges I faced, and what I learned along the way.

🔧 What Was My Contribution?

While exploring the Apache Doris website, I noticed some duplicate key
warnings, missing keys, and unnecessary imports that could affect
performance. So, I decided to:

✅ Fix duplicate key and missing key warnings in React components.
✅ Remove unused imports to optimize the codebase.
✅ Improve website performance by reducing unnecessary re-renders.

Here’s my Pull Request (PR): [Link]

🔥 Challenges & How I Solved Them

1️⃣ Understanding the Codebase: Open-source projects are massive! I
started by reading the documentation and checking the project's issue
tracker.
2️⃣ Setting Up the Local Environment: Had to install dependencies and
make sure the project built correctly.
3️⃣ Git Rebase & Conflict Resolution: When rebasing my branch with the
latest changes from master, I faced a yarn.lock conflict. I resolved
it by:

`
git rebase origin/master
# Resolved conflicts, then
git add .
git rebase --continue
`

4️⃣ Waiting for Maintainer’s Review: After pushing my changes, the
maintainer asked me to rebase and push again.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• Even small fixes matter in open-source projects.
• Learning git is essential for contributing to active projects.
• Maintainers are helpful! Engage with them if you’re stuck.
• Open-source contributions improve your coding skills and help the community.

💡 Thinking About Contributing? Just Start!

If you’ve been hesitant to contribute, I encourage you to just pick an
issue, explore, and give it a shot. Open source is a great way to
learn, collaborate, and showcase your skills.

I’d love to connect with fellow developers! Let’s talk in the comments
🚀

📢 What Next?

I plan to contribute more, especially to The Apache Software
Foundation
and other projects in GSoC 2025. Stay tuned for updates!