After reading through the different sections for LibreFoodPantry, I wanted to focus on my post on the section about the organization of LFP because it gave a good outline of how it is divided among the people working on it. The LFP has a coordinating committee that is divided into a few shops, and each shop has at least one team dedicated to it. Professors and instructors that have their class involved are shop managers. The layout of LFP and how the committee and managers work reminded me of how kanban works because of the division of the work and visualization of LFP, with some elements of scrum such as a product owners and usage of user stories, and the shop managers could seem similar to scrum masters, since some of the managers here have classes that they may help and coach.

From the blog Jeffery Neal's Blog by jneal44 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Before taking a look at the LibreFoodPantry user story map, I read through the linked article. I was able to understand the importance of a user story map when it comes to developing a project. I found the section,“Your software has a backbone and a skeleton – and your map shows it,” interesting because it actually makes sense when you look at the user story map. My initial impression on the food pantry project was that it was simple, but after looking at the story map, I realized that there are a lot of moving pieces that are all part of a bigger picture. I think that creating the story map is a good way of laying out all of the ideas of the clients and allows us to visualize/prioritize the features we need to work on.

Links: https://librefoodpantry.org/docs/user-story-map
https://www.jpattonassociates.com/the-new-backlog/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Null Pointer by vrotimmy and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

LibreFoodPantry is an open source software for food pantries with a growing community of developers, clients, and users. Upon perusing the website, I found their values to be particularly interesting, especially their value of FOSSisms. In my opinion, the belief system of FOSS (Free Open Source Software) contradicts the traditional teaching system that one receives throughout their academic career. For instance, a course at a university is typically led by a single professor, of whom the students receive all their direction from. In an Open Source community, the community tends to agree upon the direction in which the project goes. This can be a bit overwhelming for newcomers like myself to become accustomed to.

From the blog CS@Worcester – You have reached the upper bound by cloudtech360 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In order to prepare for my Software Development Capstone project, I must be aware of my client (that is, who my group will be creating software for). This client is known as “LibreFoodPantry” – a system of various University-based food pantries, combined through their goal of using computer software to make this mission more efficient.

One aspect of LibreFoodPantry that I found particularly interesting was the status of the program. Apparently, “no software has been deployed to a client as of yet”. I had decided to focus on this aspect of the pantry (and subsequently write about it) as it performs a dual effect on me. Not only does it relieve me of the guilt that I may not bring the best software to the project, but it also excites me with the opportunity to be a “pioneer”; I will lead the way with my own codes and ideas.

From the blog CS@Worcester – mpekim.code by Mike Morley (mpekim) and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I found something interesting on the LibreFoodPantry website was the Code of Conduct. It was nice to see examples given of positive behavior, negative/unacceptable behavior, and the enforcement responsibilities, along with the scope and the enforcement of the Code of Conduct. It shows that there is enforcement in place to keep people of negative intentions out of the project. It is also nice to see Enforcement Guidelines in place to help correct any negative behavior, so that everyone gets the same things enforced, so there is no pick and choose. It shows that the community behind the LibreFoodPantry is good, in my opinion.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Erockwood Blog by erockwood and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Getting Familiar with LibreFoodPantry

After reading the different items listed in LibreFoodPantry’s main page, the most surprising and important things to me were some of the information presented in the FOSSisms article. The FOSSisms article is about sixteen basic principles that should be held by students involved in open source projects. Many of these FOSSisms, including but not limited to numbers 5, 7, 8, and 11, stuck out to me as being peculiar but important for me as not only as a future software developer, but as a student working on an open source project. 

I especially found the “FOSSism #8: Branches are free” FOSSism novel, because my conception of branching was a lot more strict instead of experimental. It has given me a bit of a different outlook for development and experimentation.

Links:

https://opensource.com/education/14/6/16-foss-principles-for-educators

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

One line that I found interesting was “Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences” under the Code of Conduct. I agree with this statement, and what I find interesting about this line is the fact that when we write something on the internet, sometimes what we write might be misconstrued or misinterpreted by others. I think this is partly because it is difficult to detect the tone something is written on the internet. So, we may end up offending someone even if we do not mean to. One such example is sarcasm. Sarcasm is hard to detect online so even if we did not mean to be disrespectful, it may come off that way. So, I think it’s something people should keep in mind when posting something on GitLab or Discord. I chose this topic because I like satire and dark humor, so I use sarcasm a lot online.

https://librefoodpantry.org/docs/code-of-conduct

From the blog CS@Worcester – Just a Guy Passing By by Eric Nguyen and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Christian Shadis

I will be spending my final semester at Worcester State University contributing to the LibreFoodPantry Humanitarian Free and Open-Source Software (HFOSS)¹ project. In reviewing the mission statement, values, and other biographical sections of their website, I was directed to a list of Heidi Ellis’ sixteen ‘FOSSisms’², advice primarily for developers new to open-source projects. There was a recurrent theme among some FOSSisms – a developer should contribute as much as they can, regardless of the size of the fix they provide, or how perfect the code is. Version control allows for easily fixing mistakes, and creating new branches allows for editing code without affecting the main branch. I have been a perfectionist throughout my college career, so I found that perspective both surprising and helpful. I plan to apply these (and the rest of the) FOSSisms in these coming months.

¹https://librefoodpantry.org/
²https://opensource.com/education/14/6/16-foss-principles-for-educators

From the blog CS@Worcester – Christian Shadis' Blog by ctshadis and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One thing I found useful was reading the FOSSisms that came from the Values on the LibreFoodPantry website. FOSSism are pieces of wisdom for individuals who are about to work in an open source community. I will focus on the second FOSSism that stood out to me. This FOSSism instructed individuals to “Be productively lost”. This resonated with me because I feel like my technical skills still have a ways to go. It helped ease some of my anxiety around this topic because a period of feeling disoriented is described as being “perfectly natural”. Furthermore, I was advised to use this moment productively to learn more about the open source project/community I am about to be a part of. This was only one of the first FOSSisms that caught my eye but I would like to include the link here because there are many more I could write about.

FOSSisms Link: https://opensource.com/education/14/6/16-foss-principles-for-educators

From the blog Sensinci's Blog by Sensinci's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.