I'm Patrick Stapleton, also known as PatrickJS (the JS represents my initials but also JavaScript). I have been actively involved in open-source contributions on Github since the start of my programming journey. With Github Sponsors, I am starting a new chapter in sharing my experiences and growth. Here's a timeline of my open-source career:

Early on, I made a significant impact by helping other developers get involved in open-source contributions by walking them through their first contribution (which involved updating copyright years). In a single year, I made over 500 contributions just by updating copyright years, allowing me to learn the review processes of popular open-source repositories. In the early days of my open-source journey, I focused on filling in the gaps in the JavaScript community by building missing packages and making contributions easier and more accessible to developers.

Next, I turned my attention to learning about frontend application structure and code organization by building starter repos and sharing my thoughts on code organization. I believe that it's crucial for software engineers to have the programming skills to quickly start new projects, which is why I focused on this. My background in building Ruby on Rails apps taught me the value of using conventions to increase productivity. I also contributed to the development of 3rd party service integrations with Angular.js and spent time building glue code.

With my growing confidence in open-source development, I wanted to create something more substantial, which led me to develop Angular Universal. Working on bleeding-edge technologies meant that there were often no docs and I had to reverse engineer code to understand how everything worked. During this time, I collaborated with Sean Larkin on Webpack 2 and helped the Angular 2 community grow with Rob Wormald and the Angular team. Being heavily invested in open-source software led to burnout, so I had to find ways to quickly fund my contributions.

To fund my open-source work, I first tried teaching and education, which eventually led to consulting and even starting a startup (which was part of Y Combinator's Winter 2018 cohort). All of these experiences allowed me to delve into what I call "Open Source Marketing," which involved a variety of Github hacks (not just copyright year updates).

At present, I plan on helping to shape the direction of new bleeding-edge JavaScript projects. I want to share these projects with you and get your feedback before their official release.

By sponsoring me, you are supporting my future contributions and my open-source journey.