Why I open source my personal code

I store most of my personal code on GitHub, accessible to anyone. I have a lot of reasons to do it and couldn’t find any reason not to do it.

#I have nothing to hide

Most of my personal code is my sites’ code or tools that I use to develop my sites. Anyone can unminify this code and read if they really want.

#I can use GitHub and Travis CI and any other open source tool for free

I like GitHub and I don’t like Bitbucket (they have free private repositories). I like to store all my code in the same place — it’s convenient. I also like Travis CI and use it for all my projects, even for my blog.

#I can publish to npm for free

Sharing code with npm is much more convenient than copypasting. And you don’t have to pay for private npm.

#It forces me to write better code

My future coworker may find it and may judge my coding skills by this code. I don’t want him to look into a wrong project so I try to make all my public code good. Later me will thank current me for that.

#It forces me to write documentation

Nobody likes to find a project that seems useful but has no documentation or even comments in the code. Me too, even if it’s my own code.

#I can send a link to show my code

Often someone asks how I do this or that. If this or that is open sourced I could send a link to a file on GitHub. I can even select particular lines in that file.

#I receive pull requests with grammar fixes

It’s rare but it’s real. Some people love to fix bugs or typos if they can. I’m one of them.

#Someone else may find it useful

That’s very cool though very rare for me. Maybe one day.