There is kind of a status to having your GitHub contributions chart covered in green. For those unfamiliar, it’s a calendar-like chart that shows how active you are on GitHub any given day. It’s assumed that the greener the better. I’m not so sure anymore.

From the start of May to the end of July, I tried filling it up. Do something every day. My conclusion is that this is a typical case of Goodhart’s law. Basically as soon as a certain metric (in this case turning that chart green) becomes a goal in itself, it ceases to be a meaningful metric anymore.

The post on dev.to about how newbies should blog more was not the reason I actually pushed commits, but it was for writing this.

I gotta start with that I’m the kind who gets hyped quick and can lose interest just as quick. What was I expecting? Feedback. Something. Even getting yelled at is better than being ignored, and if I happen to find a welcoming community where I feel I can contribute meaningfully, I’d probably stay there for good.