Welcome to my second blog post for Outreachy.

Today's post is a story of struggle. We all struggle to get something done or learn something new, everybody does as long as one lives.

I struggled with many things in life but this post focus in on the aspect of it experienced while contributing to technical spaces remotely. When I started contributing to open source projects. I struggled with communication, with code, with new technologies, with acronyms, technical jargons and what have you.

It's not possible to write about all of them now, so I will be writing only about communication.

Contributing to open source is not only about writing the pure code, of course, it can even be the smallest thing to be done in the process of contributing. One thing that's certain to happen is "communication"; it would happen even in the situation where the code may not eventually get merged to the repository. Yes, you communication, the back-and-forth exchange of thoughts between I and the reviewer or anyone who gets involved with that particular patch/contribution.

Any contributions usually expects justification, but how do you that you have to communicate so by expression in writing. You get response, you write back.

In such situations I often struggled to communicate and pass my thoughts as I intend in English. I faced challenges in where I get the sense that whenever I write my response would seems to be tone-deaf and somehow unfriendly. My problem here is not that of a grammar pedant who's irked at illegal placement of oxford comma in random piece of writing, but whenever I looked at the totality of what I wrote, the diction, it will look like kind of I am shouting or being rude or something like that.

It was frustrating.

I then started to draft my comments offline, even few lines. I will then read and re-read them. I wanted to be clear that I am writing this while smiling or at least with friendly face. But there's no way to say that verbally, I have to give that hint in the words I use.

I have read some writings on the net about the problems in text-based communication, the lack of nuances, verbal cues and facial expressions and what not, that gave me some ease but I still believe I can improve.

So I still always re-read my comments (especially on some strange places where, you're not even given the luxury of editing your own comments) and make sure they have instant hint of being in friendly tone and also clear about my intentions.

While struggling is often frustrating, it certainly prepares and helps us to be (more) ready and be successful when we attempt that endeavor again.