I think the entirety of the Thea’s Pantry documentations page is useful, especially as someone that may be the scrum master for the team, I think that it is of utmost importance to take in this knowledge.  I can imagine it being the scrum master’s responsibility to have the clients stories in mind and maintain a workflow while the team is able to self-organize and operate well.

What was most interesting to me was the Values Page from the LibreFoodPantry.  I find them to be very noble and respect the efforts in “ensur[ing] a healthy and safe environment in which to collaborate and learn”. The Manifesto for Agile Software development page stood out to me as being very noble for some reason and I really enjoyed how those specific values were laid out. I think that as a humanitarian project it is important to have well defined values, ones which drive the mission. The FOSSisms were also intriguing to me as the concept of FOSS culture is pretty new to me. On a deeper level there are some FOSSism that I could say are words to live by outside of software development, wisdom that can carry over into our own personal lives. The topic of values in general have stood out to me, within my own life there’s been a presence of solidifying what my values are and seeing that there appears to be defined values within software development kinda serves as a source of hope and inspiration for building on my own values.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Sovibol's Glass Case by Sovibol Keo and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

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.

Before working on anything for LibreFoodPantry, I needed to read up on the project. LibreFoodPantry values FOSSisms: https://opensource.com/education/14/6/16-foss-principles-for-educators. I thought this was an interesting read, especially because I am new to open source culture. It discusses some values and beliefs, one of them being that if something didn’t happen publicly, then it didn’t happen. This would make it easier for people to be able to see what’s being done and join, and documenting things helps keep people up-to-date on such a large project. Some FOSSisms also mention that students’ changes aren’t likely to completely mess up a project because of versioning and branches exist. This is reassuring that something I do for the project, even something small, is still helpful, and changes I make would not be entirely damaging.

I read up on Theas Pantry at https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/documentation/-/blob/main/README.md. An interesting component of information from those files is the User Stories. I wanted to highlight this because it is helpful in helping us understand the flow of how signing in would work for different people, and any restrictions there may be. This gives us a better idea of the coding. For example, we know to code for a blank registration form appearing if the visiting guest’s WSU ID has not been swiped at the pantry before. We would also know to code for the guest’s current information to be displayed if they’ve visited before. On the topic of restrictions, the user story tells us that only one guest is allowed in the pantry at a time, so we know to maybe only code for up to one person to be signed in at a time, and they’d need to sign/check out before another guest could.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CS With Sarah by Sarah T 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.