Punderline 46: Math with feet

I admit, I used to think contributing to Firefox was basically impossible, especially as someone who didn’t yet know Rust or C++. And even if I overcame this hurdle, I thought it was hard to get set up, difficult to find bugs that are well-scoped to what I can actually accomplish given my skillset, and challenging to understand the complex codebases that would be typical of large software projects. But I wanted to help. And after hacking Google Chrome, I realized that maybe I could, or at least I could try.

Coming into the competition without a team, I was nervous about the people I’d meet and who I’d team up with. But, as I would later see, what matters most is not who’s on the team, but the attitude I carry.

I’m often surprised by the grand expectations that younger coders believe is necessary for success at Hackathon events. Here, in no particular order, are some of the most common misconceptions and tips I’ve learned.