The LibreFoodPantry is one of the most interesting projects I’ve read about. The mission and goal of this project speaks for itself. It is supposed to cover a plethora of goals, such as bringing clients, users, and developers together to maintain or complete various humanitarian project, as they explain. Not only that but these projects are put together so that instructors can expand or enhance computer science education and experience. It is also worth noting that these projects are apart of (FOSS) free and open-source software, so any developer can jump in and modify the software as they would like. The mission of this organization is very wholesome and goes to show how computer science education can be used for the greater good. The Thea’s Pantry, a food pantry for the Worcester State University Community  is one of the projects that is taking initiative to stop hunger that is happening with in Worcester State. The “User Stories” tab in the git repository for the project, explains how the entire project works. Basically, going to into detail of the whole process. What the would happen if a guest approached Thea’s Pantry, what information the staff members would need from you and how the information will be used with in the system when taking food or donating it. This information is key when it comes to knowing what the software intends to accomplish when it comes to Thea’s Pantry.

From the blog CS@Worcester – FindKelvin by Kelvin Nina and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello everyone! This semester, I will be starting my blog off talking about two food pantries: Libre Food Pantry and Thea’s Pantry. Libre Food Pantry is an open source project that computer science students and any one else who is interested can contribute to. What I found interesting while browsing the Libre Food Pantry website was their mission. It is really great that the computer science community has come up with a way to have computer science majors practice developing projects that may be useful for a good cause, the good cause here being supporting food pantries with free software. This way, the CS majors can feel that they are both learning through developing the software and supporting a good cause at the same time. The fact that this is open source is also great news to me because I am a big supporter for things being open source. After looking and reading through the Thea’s pantry documentation page, I found the Architecture page particularity useful because it shows the inner components of Thea’s pantry. The plantUML diagrams show how these inner components work together in the software. The user stories were also interesting to look through since it gives developers insight on how the website is supposed to be used, and they can use that information to improve certain areas of the software.

From the blog Comfy Blog by Angus Cheng and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One thing from LibreFoodPantry that I found interesting was how open they are about the software to the youth through Discord. In this time, many young people use Discord as a form of communication. Using Discord as a form of communication for the software is a good way to get young developers in on what is being made. I chose to write about this because many people do not realize this, and are not up to date with the times. It ends up failing to start a connection with the youth and future that is pivotal to keep these types of projects alive through them.

One thing from Thea’s Pantry that I found interesting was how deep and intricate it was. This seems like the biggest program I have seen thus far, and it is really telling how long this has been in the works. I chose this for that very reason, as it is very amazing to see the well thought architecture, the varying tools in technology, and the specific workflow of this program. The user stories are also a great way to learn about this program, you can see the various scenarios, and learn how it is supposed to work for each single one.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Anesti Blog's by Anesti Lara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I read both about the LibreFoodPantry main page and the items from Thea’s Pantry.

I chose one exciting for LibreFoodPantry and expect to find information on the organization’s mission, values, and code of conduct, as well as how to get involved and make donations. One exciting aspect of the organization may be its use and promotion of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) and the values of freedom, community, and transparency. I write about it, there are many exciting pieces, but I chose one of them because it has the organization’s commitment to open collaboration and its belief in the power of community-driven development.

I decided on one vital part from Thea’s Pantry; one might expect to find a web application that allows clients to order food and other necessities and for staff to manage those orders. One exciting aspect of Thea’s Pantry might be its Agile software development methodology. The agile methodology emphasizes collaboration, flexibility, and rapid iteration, allowing for efficient and effective development and management of the application to run correctly. Also, I write about it as an exciting piece because of the organization’s commitment to staying current with industry best practices and delivering a high-quality product to its clients.

From the blog Andrew Lam’s little blog by Andrew Lam and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One of the things I found interesting about the LibreFoodPantry’s page was their mission. I found it amazing reading about how they are both helping aspiring computer science individuals while also supporting food pantries with free software to help run the organization. The opportunity to have a community like this available to individuals who want to learn more about computer science is helpful to promote strong networks between individuals and create a support group for individuals who need more advanced help when they become stuck on a topic. In regards to Thea’s Food Pantry, I found the User Stories page to be quite interesting and helpful. Being able to see how the program works, and how a user would navigate through the program helps with the software designer working on the software be able to see the perspective from the user’s point of view, and encourages their thought process to create more features that would help the user. If an individual who was new to computer science and was reading the User Stories page, they would be able to compare what is happening within the user stories and compare that to the code, and be able to see how code can produce different features.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Noelan Chabot's Blog by nchabot1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

From the LibreFoodPantry, I have chosen for this blog post to talk about the 16 FOSSisms all educators should know. Hedi Ellis, the inventor of “FOSSisms”, came up with this idea to try and convey the idea that engaging computer science students in open-source communities can engage them more than what can be achieved in other classes. This idea was conveyed to a group of 20 faculty members from colleges from all around the United States. The 16 FOSSims are “It’s all about community, be productively lost, give back, if it isn’t public, it didn’t happen, embrace radical transparency, ask forgiveness not permission, branches are free, keep a history, begin with finishing touches, it’s not the work you know; It’s what you want to learn, release early release often, push to upstream, show me the code, remember shallow bugs, and avoid uncommunicated work”. (Heidi Ellis)

From the blog CS@worcester – Michale Friedrich by mikefriedrich1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This community-building free, which is called “Libre Food Pantry” is also an open-source software for food pantries. This source also will be the project that I and my other classmates will be working on during this semester on CS- 448. I found this project interesting and I am just waiting for working with this source. Some of the items that are linked with “Libre Food Pantry” are Mission, Values, Code of Conduct, Licensing, Acknowledgement, and Coordinating Committee. All these items are interesting, very important, and explain the role of the source really well. But the item that I will specify about this source, is Mission.

I really like and support at the same time the mission that the construction of this source has, about students and professors. It is a very good opportunity for students to face an open-source and which is free and above all to prepare about the major and the work we will be working on. The mission that this software has is a very good opportunity for us as students, and I am sure it will help us a lot.

From the blog CS@worcester – Xhulja's Blogs by xmurati and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Libre Food Pantry was created to help and support local food pantries. Its mission is simple that to bring computer science and its software to enhance and support local needs. This is what I found interesting about Libre Food Pantry. For every piece of software today, the main reason is to profit its developers and organizations rather than to support the community necessity. It’s critical to think of software that created is to assists the needs of the community, not the need of the pocket. As software developers nowadays focus so much on the cash and paybacks that we sometimes forget what our initial intention and mission is. I chose to write about the mission of Libre Food Pantry because I hope that they would keep doing what they’re doing, let aside the business and help expand the community and support the people.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Hung Nguyen by hpnguyen27 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One thing I found interesting from the reading was the Agile values and principles, and the Twelve Principles of Agile Software. I found this interesting because it puts people and teams before the product, encouraging communication and teamwork over raw productivity. I found this interesting because I would have thought that everything would be based around getting the most productivity, but instead it emphasizes the process and making interaction within the team as smooth as possible. I really like the policy of responding to change rather than following a plan, because even though having a plan is great, sticking with a failing plan is most often a bad idea. I chose to write about this because this stuck out to me as good, common-sense practices that it seems often aren’t used.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Alex's Blog by anelson42 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

For my capstone project in CS-448, we are working on the libre food pantry which I have taken a look into the mission, values, code of conduct, etc. I have read about the FOSSisms which provided good information about the opened sourced culture into sixteen parts. Such as, respecting the community and to get in-depth with the community purpose and guideline and whatever to dig up into the project you are interested in. The steps give me more insight on how to go about the open source world. And how to go about it. In step 3, to give community back intrigued me because when we are in a field working on a project we make as much positive contribution as possible to gather answers from others or give answers to others, where it is a positive two communication to continually improve your community.

From the blog cs@worcester – Dahwal Dev by Dahwal Charles and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.