Discover more YH4F projects and learn about the participants Héctor and Leonardo
Are you thinking about registering for the second edition of Youth
Hacking 4 Freedom? But you are not yet sure? Two participants from
the last edition, Héctor and Leonardo, talked with us about the
projects they developed and their journey throughout the Free
Software world! Discover their experiences during the first edition
of YH4F.
While the second edition of the YH4F contest is now open for registration, the first edition of the
Youth Hacking 4 Freedom contest has ended with 35 amazingly well done
projects. There are no limits to the possibilities of projects that
could be submitted and every technical idea is welcome. Among those
great inspiring ones were Héctor's and Leonardo's projects:
LibreHomework and Presents, respectively.
Leonardo is studying Computer Science Engineering in Milan. He has been an
active member of the European Youth Parliament since 2019 and among his
hobbies was already hacking, even before participating in the
contest. Our second guest is Héctor, the youngest winner of the first
edition of the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom contest. Héctor has always been
interested in science and in understanding the world around him in
greater detail. He has created LibreHomework out of the desire to help
others with learning and organising their homework.
FSFE: Hello
Leonardo and Héctor. Thank you for joining us.
FSFE: Leonardo,
you have already been in contact with Free Software before the YH4F
contest but you have not always loved it. When did you start to
appreciate Free Software for the concept itself?
Leonardo: I would
say that I am aware of Free Software since I have started using
computers, using LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office, GIMP
instead of Adobe Photoshop, etc. but I have always seen them as the
cheaper (and worse) alternatives to the popular programs that
everyone was using. Someone would say, I was seeing it free as in
free beer and not as in freedom.
My actual interest in Free Software is way more recent and probably
started about 2 years ago after I saw the documentary ‘The
Social Dilemma’ and started educating myself a bit about digital
privacy and the ethical use of technology. I asked myself how some
products I was using every day could be free for everyone. I started
looking for some alternatives to them, and joined some communities on
Mastodon and Reddit of people who care about those topics. This whole
process of digging online, getting in touch with new people and caring
about the consequences of my approach to technology led me to
(re)discover the big world of Free Software: this time together with
its philosophy and principles that made me fall in love with it.
FSFE: And how did you learn programming?
Leonardo: My
first contact with programming dates back to when I was 13: my
middle school technology teacher showed us one day a website where
you had to solve some Angry Birds puzzles using block-coding. I
enjoyed it so much that I kept on playing it as soon as I came home.
Then, I thought, if that game was so fun, coding something from
scratch could be even better!
I started watching some videos online on how to start coding with
JavaScript, even though I have never actually learned it. But the first
programming language I can say I learned is Python, thanks to a "Summer
Camp": I attended at a school called H-Farm near my home city. This
course has been followed, in the past 6 years, by many other courses and
tutorials about other languages such as C# and Flutter/Dart, which is
the one I used for my YH4F project.
FSFE
Héctor: Like
most people I started with Scratch at the age of 10-11 and then I
moved towards more advanced languages like Javascript and Python. I
was initially fond of game development but now I like working on
servers and backend stuff.
FSFE: So, you
already had some knowledge about coding. Why did you join the YH4F
contest?
Héctor: My IT
teacher encouraged me to participate in the contest, so the project
would decide my final mark. Working on an actual programming project
was way more exciting than doing what my classmates were doing. I
joined the contest in October and worked, since then, on the idea: the
app, the server and the daemon.
FSFE: And what
about you, Leonardo, what motivated you to join our competition?
Leonardo: Not long
after the "change" I mentioned, I saw an advertisement for this
contest, organized by the Free Software Foundation Europe, that was
aiming to promote and encourage the Free Software culture among young
minds. I thought it was not only a commendable idea, but also a great
opportunity for me to merge my recent interest for FOSS with my
passion for coding. So I decided to participate, re-building from
scratch my recent coding project in order to make it fully Free
Software, and ready to be used by large communities.
FSFE: How did you
came up with your individual project idea?
Leonardo:The idea
for "Presents"
came into my mind back in 2020. After the lockdown period caused by
the COVID-19 pandemic, it was time to think about birthday gifts for
all the friends that had turned 18 during the lockdown (which were a
lot, since my classmates and I are born in 2002). Since it takes me
some time to come up with a good gift idea for a friend, and I'm
definitely a lazy person, I thought: shouldn't there be an easier way
for all this?
The App
"Presents" developed from Leonardo.
That is how I started shaping the idea of this app in which people could
add their wishes and forget about them while their friends or family
could get inspiration from it to make the perfect gift without ruining
the surprise effect. I started looking online for the best tech stack to
realize this project. I ended up following some really great quality
tutorials about the programming language Flutter and Googles App
development platform Firebase. They made me publish the first version of
the app in October 2020! But then I didn't like the fact that my own app
wasn't following the Free Software philosophy, so I took the YH4F
contest as an opportunity to develop a better, fresher and free version
of Presents, Presents 2.0.
Héctor: Since I
started learning programming I always wanted to make a task manager, so
it was an idea that was already in my head, well, kind of. I also felt
that the Free Software community lacked a good app for students, to help
us manage our time and tasks, so an app like LibreHomework was a good
target.
LibreHomework is an open-source tool made for students by students. It
can schedule tasks, exams, organise your documents and lock your device
screen to help you focus on your tasks.
FSFE: Are there some
special functions in the application?
Héctor: The lock
your screen function. It basically blocks the user from accessing the
computer until a button is pressed or a timer finishes. It is achieved
by putting the app in full screen and setting it “always on top”. It is
not 100% effective but for someone with little to no knowledge of
programming/computers it’s more than enough. In fact, making it more
secure would imply making the app more aggressive on a system/kernel
level.
LibreHomework will also be able to send you reminders. This is achieved
by the daemon, written in Rust. It is a completely different program
from the app and it’s not so well integrated yet, so it is a milestone.
FSFE: What is your favourite function?
Héctor:I don’t
really have one because the app is supposed to be useful with all of
them, but if I have to choose one I’ll choose the network/server. It’s
completely coded and running, but the User Interface is not done yet,
so it’s planned for the near future.
FSFE: Now that we
have learned more about your projects, what kind of problems have both
of you encountered during the coding period?
Leonardo: I would
say I encountered many problems during the coding phase: some minor
ones that could have been easily solved with a quick search on Stack
Overflow. Some others took me several days and a lot of effort to be
fixed.
Actually, the majority of the issues I faced from the latter category
were related with AppWrite: the open-source backend I adopted to replace
Google Firebase. I didn't know AppWrite before starting Presents 2.0,
and I learned using their official documentation during this
competition. But, even so it has strong and well-done documentations,
AppWrite is missing all the "unofficial resources" like articles, video
tutorials, and so on that other proprietary backends can count on and
that make life for beginner-programmers like me way easier.
That's why, I started thinking about writing a series of articles about
my experience with AppWrite, why I find it a great alternative to Google
Firebase, and how to use it as a backend for your next Flutter app.
Héctor: A lot of
bugs as expected. Some of them were really weird but I ended up solving
them with some technical help. I also faced some decisions about the
design or the network’s security, so I hope they didn’t backfire.
FSFE: Despite these
challenges, will you continue to work on your project?
Héctor: Yes, there
are some planned things and they are specified in the README: managing
exams/documents, finishing the network’s tab, integrating the daemon,
and making the project available in more languages.
Leonardo:I am
continuously working on Presents, and I will keep on doing it since I
don't see it just as a project for a competition but as an actual app
that could help many people during their daily life. Up until now, the
development has been focused on bridging the gap between version 1 and 2
in terms of functionalities and availability. As soon as this gap won't
exist any more, Presents 2.0 will replace its ancestor both on the app
stores and on the website. Then I will start working on some new
features, hopefully following also community's suggestions (that by the
way I'm always happy to accept and discuss in the Issues page of the project repository on
Codeberg).
FSFE: Thank you for
your time and we wish you good luck with your next steps.
The registration for the second edition of YH4F is now open. For more
information on the contest please visit yh4f.org.
Support FSFE
