With this being our first sprint of the semester it went well but we had our fair share of issues that we had to work through as a team which will help us make better decisions on our workflow and our team dynamic in the future. I personally worked on five issues throughout the sprint, one of these issues being a team issue and three of the issues being assigned to myself while we still worked as a team while going through our individual issues. These issues included adding the alex js linter to a pipeline and resolving alex js issues, adding a git pod dev environment setup to a repo in the project and moving from commands to bin for a specific repo within the project. Our group issue that we completed included researching frontend development and using our research to create issues for our second sprint regarding the wireframe for the add inventory frontend.

Overall I did not have much trouble with my individual issues within this sprint. My first issue I worked on with the alex js linter was straightforward and I was able to complete it without much delay as there were not a lot of terms flagged by the linter after its implementation to the pipeline. My second issue regarding git pod dev environments took a bit more time which was simply just due to the time it took to fully test the pipeline after a commit but I did not have trouble with implementing the git pod dev environment within the repository. My last individual issue involved moving from commands to bin, this was my most simple individual issue as it mainly consisted of renaming a folder and checking for commands which used the commands folder and changing it to use the bin folder. Our team wide issue of researching frontend and making issues also went well as we all attended the meeting and went over frontend basics together. Links to my individual issues are listed below.

Although we did not have a large amount of problems within this sprint I still feel as though there are things we could work on to improve as a team. One thing we can improve on is our timeline when it comes to reviewing, during the sprint we didn’t review our code until near the end of the sprint which just ended up being inefficient and experiencing this has led to us deciding to review code as soon as possible during this sprint instead of waiting until the end of the sprint in order to notify each other of any issues with our work with ample time to fix mistakes. Another thing I feel as though we all need to work on during sprint two is our use of gitlab as there were points where we got lost in gitlab when making merge requests, branches etc so being more careful when using gitlab will help us all remain more organized in order to ensure we get our code properly reviewed and merged within a timely manner. In my opinion we worked well together given it was our first time working in a team like this and hopefully we can continue to develop our abilities to work as a team throughout the next two sprints.

Alex JS Linter issue: 

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/checkinventoryfrontend/-/issues/33

Gitpod Dev Environments Issue: 

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/checkinventoryfrontend/-/issues/32

Move from commands to bin issue: 

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/checkinventoryfrontend/-/issues/31

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dylan Brown Computer Science by dylanbrowncs and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Going into our first sprint, not only as a team together but as each of our first sprints individually, we were all on the same page with similar expectations. Those being that we would equally know just as little as each other. This mentality was good to have when we ran into issues that we knew ahead of time would take working as a team to solve. We had no idea what those issues would be, just that there were going to be plenty as this was a learning opportunity for each one of us.

Our team was tasked with setting up AlexJS linter and Gitpod extensions in select repositories in Thea’s Pantry. We tackled these tasks by dividing the work between us so that we would work primarily in one repository, with mine being the GuestInfoSytems/GuestInfoFrontend. This only worked for 3 of our members with the 4th having to work in a different repository for each issue. Looking back on this, only working in one repository makes working individually more organized but, as we found out later, would lead to less cross referencing and things being missed.

Other issues our team tackled during the sprint involved frontend testing. First we worked together to do research on open source frontend testing software that could be used in our project. This led us to understand how frontend testing works and what tests should be expected. With this knowledge, we investigated the frontends that were available to design the test that would need to be built in a later sprint.

What Worked Well:

Our team collaboration was by far our strongest feature. With all of us willing to work together and communicate, we were able to make sure that we all stayed on the same page throughout the sprint. Our team stayed in constant communication throughout, even in between meetings. This meant we could communicate times for meetings well ahead of when we wanted to have them, while still being flexible if something came up. When we were working together in a meeting it was either in person or over a discord call. These calls sometimes went on for hours. However, no one let that bother them when it came to getting the work done and sticking around to make sure we all understood what was going on.

What Didn’t Work Well:

The most notable issue we ran into was the weights of our issues. While on paper the issues seemed trivial, what we didn’t account for was the complexities of learning Gitpod and Gitlab. Navigating gitlab and handling pipeline commit message issues lead to the majority of the long nights and ultimately meant that none of our weights should have been a 0.

Team Improvements:

We were all working on the same or similar issues in different repositories meant we could do them together simultaneously. This led to all of our work this sprint being done during the calls with only minor issues being handled individually. While this made the work way more digestible at the start, it is important that we are able to handle issues individually in the future when we have to work on issues that don’t all align with each other’s. 

Person Improvements:

I noticed that a lot of, if not all, of my questions were answered in the documentation provided in the repository I was working in. Moving forward I am going to do better at fully looking through the documentation and files to get a better understanding of the project and how to approach issues.

Gitpod Issues:

Setup Gitpod environment and settings for GuestInfoFrontend:
https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/guestinfofrontend/-/issues/85

Issue to change commands to bin in GuestInfoFrontend was fixed prior to the sprint:
https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/guestinfofrontend/-/issues/82 

Worked on adding the AlexJS linter to the pipeline for GuestInfoFrontend:
https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/guestinfofrontend/-/issues/81 

Researched open source frontend testing software:
https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/guestinfofrontend/-/issues/86

Designed tests for GuestInfoSytems/GuestInfoFrontend:
https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/guestinfofrontend/-/issues/87

Designed tests for InventorySystem/CheckOutGuestFrontend:
https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/checkoutguestfrontend/-/issues/36 

From the blog CS@Worcester – CS Learning by kbourassa18 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

As the first sprint EVER, it went very well, and it provided significant learning opportunities.

Our team exhibited strong collaboration throughout this initial phase. Effective communication was a cornerstone of our approach, enabling us to schedule both online and face-to-face meetings efficiently. A testament to our collaborative spirit was achieving our target of completing more than 75% of the tasks by the sprint’s end. This success largely stemmed from our commitment to weekly in-person meetings, fostering a united team environment crucial for addressing new challenges and workflows.

Despite these positive aspects, our journey was not devoid of hurdles. We encountered several setbacks, primarily due to our collective inexperience with GitLab and its workflow processes. Initially, we struggled with navigation, issue postings, and branch creations, leading to confusion and delays. Our approach to merge requests and the subsequent review process also proved problematic, culminating in merge conflicts and pipeline failures due to our wait-until-the-end strategy.

In light of these challenges, we aim to refine our approach in the upcoming sprint. We plan to create a “Workflow tips” document, compiling our experiences and solutions from this sprint to circumvent similar obstacles in the future. We intend to adopt a more proactive review process for issues and streamline our approach to merge requests, ensuring they align with workflow requirements.

Reflecting on the obstacles I encountered this sprint, there are several areas for personal improvement:

Enhancing GitLab Skills: I recognize the importance of becoming more proficient with GitLab. I intend to invest effort into understanding its intricacies, especially concerning branch management, handling merge requests, and connecting issues. I plan to utilize online resources, seek guidance from tutorials, and lean on my peers for support to enhance my competency.

Strengthening Communication: Acknowledging the need for improvement, I aim to enhance my approach to communication. I will take initiative to seek out feedback more actively and clarify doubts promptly with team members and mentors, aiming to resolve issues before they escalate.

Boosting Organizational Capabilities: I understand that better organization is key to avoiding past mistakes. Therefore, I am committed to honing my organizational skills, particularly in keeping track of my tasks, associated merge requests, and issues. Employing project management tools or maintaining a personal task tracker will be instrumental in keeping me in sync with the team’s goals and deadlines.

Links to the issues covered in this sprint:

Create Integration and Pipeline

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/integration/-/issues/1

Settings and extensions previously located in the dev container should now be transferred to .vscode/settings.json and .vscode/extensions.json within the Gitpod environment, as outlined in the .gitpod.yml documentation. Furthermore, developer commands should be moved from the commands directory to bin to align with standard Linux conventions, necessitating updates in script paths and .gitlab-ci.yaml environment variables. Additionally, integrate the AlexJS linter into each project’s pipeline and the bin/lint.sh script, ensuring all documentation is checked and updated accordingly.

Familiarize ourselves with guestInfoFrontend to understand what goes into CheckoutGuestFrontend

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/checkoutguestfrontend/-/issues/37

This activity served as an introduction to the primary objectives of sprint 2. During this phase, we collectively reviewed the current wireframe for the checkout guest front end to familiarize ourselves with the anticipated design layout.

Refactor commands folder to bin

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/gitlab-profile/-/issues/69

This process entailed establishing a bin directory within the project and transferring three scripts from the template project into this new folder. Following this, I conducted tests on each of the three scripts to verify their functionality.

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

Sprint 1 Retrospective

Introduction

• In the first sprint we were mostly focused on learning the ropes of gitlab and getting familiarized with the sprint structure.
• This sprint lasted for 5 stand ups which is equivalent to 2 and ½ weeks. This ended up feeling a bit cramped considering the amount of learning that was necessary for this process.

Links to Activity on GitLab

• https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/checkoutguestfrontend/-/issues/37 :This activity was a precursor to the main focus of sprint 2. In this activity we all looked at the existing wireframe for checkout guest frontend and got used to the expected layout.
• https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/guestinfosystem/guestinfoapi/-/issues/125: This activity was odd as it seemed to have been done already so all I was able to contribute here was to run the linters to insure everything worked correctly.
• https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/gitlab-profile/-/issues/11: This involved creating a bin folder in the project and copying the 3 scripts into it from the template project. I then tested the three scripts to make sure they worked
• https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/documentation/-/issues/4: This Issue was focused around creating a new gitpod.yaml file and adding the extensions that are needed to it. This also involved moving the file containing the settings from the docker folder to the gitpod one.

Reflections on the Sprint

What Worked Well?

• In this sprint I found that communication as a group was key to our success. Any problems that we faced were made much easier when we tackled them as a group instead of alone. I think that our review process was good and we just need to make sure we keep logs of these reviews in the appropriate discord channel.

What Didn’t Work Well?

• I think that the main thing that we struggled with was learning how to use this new environment and process. I think that this caused lots of issued especially with multiple people working in the same projects and all being confused about what to do, This lead to issues with people creating branches in the wrong issues as well as people accidentally doing issues for other teams. I personally struggled with making sure the right merge request was linked to the issue and will try to improve this for the next sprint.

Given the detailed account of your Sprint 1 Retrospective, let’s complete the remaining sections with reflective insights and forward-looking statements based on your experiences and observations.

Improvements for Team Performance

The team’s ability to communicate and tackle problems collectively was a strong point during this sprint. However, the transition to using new tools and processes highlighted several areas for improvement. To enhance our team performance in future sprints, we propose the following changes:

1. Enhanced Onboarding for New Tools: Given the difficulties encountered with GitLab and related tools, a focused session or resource compilation on these tools at the sprint’s start could mitigate confusion. This could include tutorial links, common troubleshooting tips, and a Q&A session.
2. Clarification of Roles and Tasks: To prevent overlap and confusion, especially in a multi-person project environment, clearly defining roles and tasks at the sprint planning meeting could ensure smoother operation. This might involve assigning specific issues to individuals or small groups and establishing clear ownership of tasks.
3. Streamlined Communication Channels: While communication was strong, ensuring that all discussions, especially those related to problem-solving and decision-making, are logged in an accessible and organized manner (e.g., categorized Discord channels or a dedicated project management tool) would help maintain clarity and continuity.

Personal Improvements

Reflecting on my personal challenges during this sprint, specifically around managing merge requests correctly, I see valuable opportunities for growth:

1. GitLab Proficiency: I will dedicate time to deepen my understanding of GitLab’s workflow, focusing on branch management, merge requests, and issue linking. Online resources, tutorials, and peer assistance will be valuable in this learning process.
2. Proactive Communication: To prevent and swiftly address any uncertainties or errors in my work, I commit to being more proactive in seeking feedback and clarifications from team members and mentors.

Organizational Skills: I will improve my organizational skills, particularly in tracking my tasks and their related merge requests and issues. Using project management tools or personal task trackers could help ensure that I am always aligned with the team’s objectives and timelines.

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