So long and thanks for all the fish!

So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Julian Ridden -
Number of replies: 17

Evening all.

I was debating where I should place this post in the Moodle forums, but thought as I pretty much come to the Themes forum everyday that this would be the best place.

After 10 years of active, some would say "hardcore" moodle'ing I am announcing my departure from the project. All the info can be found at my blog post that can be found here. http://moodleman.net/articles/long-thanks-fish/

I still we be working on my themes for the next 6 months or so. Although if anyone out there is interested in becoming a maintainer I would love to hear from you.

I will also be lurking around these forums from time to time and will be sure to pop in and say hello. While I say in this in the post that I hope you will read, I want to thank all of you in the Moodle Community. You have been why I do what I do Your passion and energy has driven me to want to create new things. Your ideas have inspired me and many of you have taught me more than you could ever imagine. But, after 10 years, it is time for some new and exciting challenges. In 2 weeks time I am joining Instructure, the creators of the fantastic Canvas LMS. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can learn from their community and where it will grow.

You can still always grab me on twitter or email. I certainly won't be disappearing overnight.

Regards

Julian

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.” 
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Usman Asar -

sad sad to see you leaving Moodle with a hope that your themes continued go work on future releases of Moodle. Good Luck with your new job Yes

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Mary Evans -

Awwww....I will miss our friendly banter...Essential bah umbug... ...which was at times, looking back, stupidly none essential and not very elegant of me to make the odd quip about your themes not being stable!!! 

All the best Julian in your ventures...

Love & hugs...

cheers

Mary

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In reply to Mary Evans

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Julian Ridden -

have no fear, my "unstable" code will still be here to haunt you in my absence Mary :D

I want to stress, while my announcement makes it official, I'll still be a round in the forums for a little while yet. Im not gotten rid of that easily!

Although, I could have picked a better date. Didn't even occur to me that it is April 1st! I wish I had thought of this last year and announced I was joining Blackboard or something. The impact would have been huge :P

Thanks for the well wishes everyone!

Julian

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Richard Oelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

You'll be massively missed among the community Julian, not just for your themes (which have caused some of us some headaches, just by their massive popularity, which goes to show how good they are!) but also as a character around the iMoot and everywhere else you pop up - Instructure are getting a major asset!

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Derek Chirnside -

Well, I check my phone at 3.30 am to try to find out if there is any progress on three questions on Moodle.org that are vexing me and I see this news.

SO, the Moodle world has changed.  Yes, the themes forum is the best place to post, with you having been one of the small group to push Moodle's appearance into a new level.  

I am reminded of a visit I made to Singapore to run a Moodle workshop only to find they had just installed Canvas and my workshop was a fizzer. smile

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.  I wish you well Julian.

So now you get to code with Jquery that is not an add-in.  smile

-Derek

 

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Julian Ridden -

LOL. JQuery was the reason for the decision mind you...but a nice perk! :D

Of course now I have to learn Ruby on Rails. Talk about a new learning curve!

Julian

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Gareth Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Sorry to see you go Julian, but progress is not made by standing still.  Good luck in your new quest and keep inspiring change.

As always, the fish has the last word:

Gareth

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Chris Kenniburg -
Picture of Plugin developers

When I saw your posting on Twitter I immediately thought it was a april fools joke.  Sorry to see you go.  Your Moodle and Mahara themes are outstanding.  Great job.  I am sure you will do great things at Canvas.  

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hey Julian,

I've enjoyed your contributions to both Moodle and Moodle.org forums. I wish you the best of luck in your new adventure and I hope it turns out to be everything you hope it'll be... and more.

Don't forget, first thing at instructure is to change their logo:

Canvoodle

Have fun!

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Julian Ridden -

That is just 100 levels of awesome Matt!

And while Moodleman can never be truly replaced, I was thinking he might have a new partner in the super hero stakes. Captain Canvas! Although, I really wish I could get my own name as a twitter handle now but it was snaffued already sad

 

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Richard Wallace -

Julian

You are a legend and always will be, best of luck for all your future endeavours.

Kind Regards and many thanks for all your help and fun at moots, Richard Wallace

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Derek Chirnside -

On a completely random note, I was doing a little upgrading of my awareness of a few OS projects last weekend.  I re-discovered this site: https://www.ohloh.net/ Obviously you need to be wary of data like this, but comparisons of Moodle and Canvas are interesting.

And I noticed recently that Petr was leaving MoodleHQ.  See the post well down near the bottom on the debate about to oracle or not: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-41310

According to this page, https://www.ohloh.net/p/moodle/contributors?query=&sort=commits Petr is the only person who has made more commits than MD himself.

I was actually looking up Chamillo.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamilo where it says "The origins of Chamilo's code date back to 2000, with the start of the Claroline project, which was forked in 2004 to launch the Dokeos project. In 2010, it was forked again with the publication of Chamilo 1.8.6.2"  Forks after 4 and 10 years in the same project.  

And on a different note, I was comparing FFmpeg and Libav: https://www.ohloh.net/p/compare?project_0=FFmpeg&project_1=Libav&submit_1=Go Again a massive fork.

And on another random note, this from Kineo: https://community.adaptlearning.org/ with their announcing an open source Adapt framework (which as far as I can tell exists) and authoring tool (which is coming):

"Our vision statement for the Adapt Learning Project is:

  • To create, as a community, the leading e-learning authoring tool for producing responsive content (i.e. single version output) that works across multiple types of devices. . . ."\

So.  The world of FOSS is ever evolving.

I wonder what Julian's picture will look like if he was on this page: http://www.instructure.com/executive-team ???? 

I've today put on hold all the work we were doing with an Essential/Awesome bar mashup.  I'll be watching the conversations in this forum with interest.

-Derek

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Heading off topic, but if you want meaningless numbers related to Moodle development, then https://moodle.org/dev/contributions.php is a better source. It separates out the huge number of merges that only integrators do, from the commits that really contribute new code.

Also, note that for many years, changes to the lang files were committed by an automated script using Martin D's sign-in, so Martin's numbers are inflated somewhat, but probably only by the order of one commit per day for a few years (so, around 1000).

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

The Prolific Theme creator is leaving Moodle? Darn. Every new theme from Julian Ridden was like fresh sushi to me. Me thinks that Ridden will not easily get rid of Moodle from his system. Will miss you on them there Moodle.org forums. Enjoy Canvas, but go easy on the Flame-throwing tank! LOL. Who knows, maybe while you're there, you'll make Canvas more Moodle-like and when you come back you'll make Moodle more Canvas-like. Can't wait for that to happen. Farewell.

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In reply to Frankie Kam

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Frankie,

Mmm... trying to change software... ?

Workflow

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In reply to Frankie Kam

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish!

by Julian Ridden -

Hi Frankie.

Have no fear, there is no tank or flames in sight. I am hoping to assist in bridging the communities. Teach Instructure some new tricks and yes, hopefully bring some cool ones back to this community.

Part of me will always be Moodle, it has had a large and profound impact on my career and life for so long. Looking forward to reinvesting that same energy into a new project and getting that rush all over again smile

Julian

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