Principles

We think that by following these principles we will be able to support vokomokum the most, in the short and long term, and with the least work required:

Get access to existing systems

Before moving to foodsoft, we want to get access to the existing systems in the existing servers. That way, we achieve our first goal of removing the dependence on the members that are not active anymore. Having these systems working will also make it easier for us to move functionality from the existing systems to foodsoft.

Keep using the main version of foodsoft (don't fork it)

A problem that hapenned with the Amsterdam version of foodsoft, is that it was forked from the main version and because of that it didn't get any of the improvements from the main version. We want to always keep using the main version of foodsoft so that we get all the benefits described at the start of this document.

We think we can do this by:

1. proposing improvements directly to the main version of foodsoft, instead of adding it to our own version.
2. for any improvements that are not accepted in the main version of foodsoft, we add them to our own version as plugins that work on top of the latest main version of foodsoft.

Start from the main version of foodsoft

Since we already have a version of foodsoft at vokomokum we considered starting from this version and adding what was missing. However, because this software is years behind the main version, and because it has incompatible database migrations with the main version, we'll just be introducing technical debt that we will have to fix later. Also, because the main version of foodsoft is years ahead it might already have some of the functionality that we are missing in the current version.

That's why, we'll start from the main version of foodsoft and add any missing functionality.

Only add the functionality we need

The Amsterdam version of foodsoft and the plugins in the vokomokum version of foodsoft both have custom functionality that might not be in the main version of foodsoft. However, we might not need all of that functionality. Some of it might already be integrated in the main version of foodsoft, and other might not be needed (like some style enhancements). So, instead of automatically adding to the main version of foodsoft all the functionality that is currently in the amsterdam and vokomokum version, we will only add the functionality that we need and which is currently missing in the main version of foodsoft.

Read about our development process to learn how we discover, organise, implement and test the needed functionality.