For 2020, I made the decision not to opt my How Many Days Until Halloween? project in as part of Hacktoberfest.

Here’s why.

Time

I did some mental math recently. I have realized that isn’t enough time in the day to get done what I need to get done, want to get done, plus sleep, eat, etc. As I wrote about in You Don’t Have to Participate in Hacktoberfest, self-care > coding, and I need to follow my advice.

As fun as this project has over the past 3 years, it does take a lot of time and energy that I do not have to spare at this time. I’ve had ideas on how to expand on this project, what I would like to do, etc. But haven’t been able to get it to a place that I would like, that would sustain multiple, external contributions.

The Spirit of Hacktoberfest

Ha. Spirit.

Hacktoberfest is now in its 7th year. It has evolved some overtime. Recently, the idea of “quality vs quantity” has been highlighted as a core value. This year, the language reads as follows:

Quantity is fun, quality is key. Participating in Hacktoberfest leads to personal growth, professional opportunities, and community building. However, it all begins with meaningful contributions to open-source software.

And I get it. Quality is better than quantity.

This line also had me debating if a countdown timer to Halloween meets the quality criteria. It’s not a spammy project—or…is it?—but the uncertainty helped me to solidify my decision.

There Are Bigger Fish Out There

What I love about coding is that it doesn’t *have* to make a big change in the world.

But it can.

And with everything going on in the world right now, I want to make space for the open-source projects that matter.

If you are unsure what this could mean or where to start, here are some COVID-19 and climate change related projects to contribute to.

What Does This Mean?

• A simplified countdown to Halloween can be found at halloweenti.me.
• Previous iterations can be found here:
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017

• The hacktoberfest topic has been removed from the project on GitHub (meaning, it is not opted into Hacktoberfest, per the 2020 update)
• I will not be accepting or merging any new pull requests at this time.

If any questions are not covered here, please DM me on Twitter.

In the meantime, stay spooky my friend.

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Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash