The MESS is a python / django web application designed to manage members, accounts, workshifts, and sales transactions for the staff and members of the Mariposa food coop.

It is both in use and in development.  There is currently not a demo site that is accessible to the public, because that would require a bunch of dummy data which we unfortunately have not created.


Sections a readme should have:

Installation guidelines

Screenshots

Architecture outline

MESS Programming Intro, for use by new programmers and designers

** I. What is Django **
Django is a web programming framework built around Python.  It provides routines and classes (and probably other things) to help manage many aspects of a dynamic-database-driven website.  On the database side, Django deals with SQL calls so the programmer doesn't have to.  On the webserver side, Django does all kinds of things.

** II. What happens when I load a mess url **
Django keeps tables of URLs (in */url.py) telling which Template to use for each URL.  The template file (in /templates/*/*.html) is served to the browser.  However, the template file can include Python code, particularly pulling data from the database.  Code in the template is set off with {{ double braces }}.