Hello, my name is Joshua Donovan. This is where I will be posting my blogs for WSU’s CS-448 course.
From the blog Joshua's Blog by Joshua D. and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
CS-448 Setup Blog
Hello, my name is Joshua Donovan. This is where I will be posting my blogs for WSU’s CS-448 course.
From the blog Joshua's Blog by Joshua D. and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
CS-443 Setup Blog
Hello, my name is Joshua Donovan. This is where I will be posting my blogs for WSU’s CS-443 course.
From the blog Joshua's Blog by Joshua D. and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
CS-443 Setup Blog
Hello, my name is Joshua Donovan. This is where I will be posting my blogs for WSU’s CS-443 course.
From the blog Joshua's Blog by Joshua D. and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
CS448: Thea’s Pantry /LFP Introductory Post
This week, I was asked to quickly peruse through both the publicly available material for both Thea’s Pantry and LibreFoodPantry and write a blog post on what I found surprising.
What unexpected thing did I learn about Thea’s Pantry?
That the above-linked wiki services developers, customers, and users all at once instead of there being separate wikis for each customer/user segment.
I was surprised because this observation points to an endemic quality about Thea’s Pantry that I have not witnessed elsewhere: the small scale and scope of the project (and its open-ended FOSS nature) as compared to enterprise solutions means that there are very few levels of separation between the different population segments. I expect to be surprised further as the term progresses, especially since this is my first time working in FOSS/HFOSS.
What unexpected thing did I learn about LibreFoodPantry?
That there was a LibreFoodPantry Discord! Similarly to my hesitation around the lack of dedicated developer and user wikis, it was a bit of a shock to see that LFP had been cultivating an online presence outside of what one would expect from hearing that a project is open source (to be sure, a public GitHub repo or any number of Atlassian product deployments would come to mind). What was even more surprising to me was that developers interested in the project have openly solicitited their services on said Discord and used it to learn more about the project directly, which speaks to a level of engagement and outreach that I have personally never seen before.
That’s all.
Kevin N.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Kevin D. Nguyen by Kevin Nguyen and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
Theas Pantry Introduction
Looking through the LibreFoodPantrys values and FOSSisms did much to help me put my mind at ease about this upcoming undertaking for this capstone project. It is easy to feel a sense of imposter syndrome when it comes to putting all the knowledge you worked hard to gain from previous semesters, and then apply it to any project that will be deployed for actual use in the real world. Reading through the FOSSisms helped mitigate some of the worry because it made me realize that the beauty of FOSS, especially when it comes to in class projects, is that it is expected for people to not be an expert in their aspect of work and that it is beneficial to feel a little “lost” as long as one buses that productively. Another aspect I found comforting was that it is obvious that tackling bigger tasks in a project can be overwhelming and that it may be more productive to first handle smaller bugs first, that will still be meaningful to the project as a whole.
As for the TheasPantry repo, I found the Architecture and UserStories sections particularly helpful. Since we mainly focused on the guest info systems aspect in our previous course, these sections helped me understand how the inventory architecture was set up and its purpose on both the frontend and backend. I found the diagram of the InventorySystem helpful to understand what component makes calls to which server.
From the blog Anna The Dev by Adrianna Frazier and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
Software Quality Assurance & Testing Introduction
Hello, I am taking this class this semester because I wish to learn more about making software that not only works, but works as intended! Hope to have a great semester!
From the blog Petraq Mele blog posts by Petraq Mele and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
Introduction to LibreFoodPantry and its use in Thea’s Pantry
What is LibreFoodPantry?
LibreFoodPantry is a open-source software project for local food pantries with Thea’s pantry being one of them located at Worcester State.
Reading the official LibreFoodPantry website we can find some very interesting and informative things. When doing research on the website I was able to figure out how to contribute to the project which I thought was important incase someone was interested in contributing. While that is important I was really impressed by the mission & values, specifically the code of conduct. This code was very well put together and exemplifies what the mission is all about.
Thea’s pantry, as stated, is one of the Pantry locations which uses this software for its system. I was really surprised as to how well documented this was. Looking at each part of the README file, as well as the following documentation directories, you can get a sense of what this software is actually doing & of course how it works. I felt this was an extremely important part to touch on specifically because there are softwares I have seen in the past with terrible documentation that I simply was unable to work on so having it makes it much more enjoyable.
Overall I am excited to be apart of this project and hoping for an amazing development experience.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Petraq Mele blog posts by Petraq Mele and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
Intro to LibreFoodPantry & Thea’s Pantry
Let’s start by diving into what these two Pantries are:
- LibreFoodPantry is a community of people creating free and open-source software for food pantries.
- Thea’s Pantry is one such food pantry, serving the Worcester State University community.
These two entities are currently working in tandem to improve Thea’s Pantry’s operations, to better provide for those in need of food and critical toiletries in the area.
Let’s learn a bit from LibreFoodPantry:
FOSSisms, or Free-and-Open-Source-Software-isms, are a set of concepts that developers can integrate into their general workflows. Two of my favorites are as follows:
- FOSSism #11: It’s not what you know; it’s what you want to learn
- FOSSism #12: Release early, release often
FOSSism 11 embodies the idea that you should not expect to know how to implement everything you want to, yet. It’s almost expected that you will have a ramp-up time to be capable of producing new useful software components, and in the meantime, you need to get in there and mess around to learn that capability.
FOSSism 12 builds perfectly off of the previous point. There is fear for many, that they must wait until their project or component is perfect before releasing any version of it whatsoever. This is one of the most important habits to break as soon as possible, we should seek out every source possible for improving our work, including others.
And a touch from Thea’s Pantry:
Thea’s Pantry has a very useful set of documentation, including docs describing the tech stack and the architecture of the service. I found looking at the integration and deployment diagrams to be exceptional for helping me get a grasp on what Thea’s Pantry actually is under the hood.
Here’s hoping for a successful semester of messing up lots, and creating awesome software the whole while!
From the blog CS@Worcester – KeepOnComputing by CoffeeLegend and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
LibreFoodPantry, and Thea’s Pantry
Hello everyone,
Let’s get right into it and start with LibreFoodPantry which is a free and open source software that helps local food pantries distribute food and serve their clients and guests. Reading more about them on their website I learnt a lot. They showed a really strong coordinated and structured team, so being able to work and contribute into a real life project that’s goal and mission is to help a community feels amazing. I had seen how we have used their software to help us with our school’s pantry and after talking to organizers of the Pantry itself on Thursday it felt really special. Now I have a more complete sense of what is happening as I know how they want the system to do and also learning about the backend of it since last semester.
Next, is our very dear Thea’s Pantry, which provides not only food but other essentials to students, staff and faculty. I think this is a really nice addition to our campus as it offers a lot of help to people who are in need of essential stuff and makes the campus more welcoming as everyone is ready and more than happy to help each other in times of need. One thing that I did find surprising when we visited the pantry is the only thing that they are tracking for what students are taking is basically the weight and there are some limitations on how much stuff you can take per week on selective products. At first I thought students had to declare everything that they got but I guess they only focus on how much inventory there is left.
From the blog Elio's Blog by Elio Ngjelo and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.