Plugins Age and When to Upgrade Moodle

Plugins Age and When to Upgrade Moodle

by Greg Padberg -
Number of replies: 2

We have recently updated to Moodle 2.7.3 and all is well.  Some of my users are looking forward to the improvements in the new Moodle 2.8 released last month.  I know this is a bit subjective but perhaps there is some good discussion to be had.  Are there any rules for when to update Moodle?  What is the best balance between features and stability?

What about plugins that seem to be maintained (updated within the past year or so) and reasonably popular but are not explicitly mentioned as being for use with the latest Moodle Stable release?

A Moodle Partner once told me that they make the latest Moodle available to their hosted clients after the first minor release, which makes sense to me in order to first discover and fix any bugs.

Having all of the latest features is great but having too many (unsupported) plugins can also hold you back!  Discuss.

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In reply to Greg Padberg

Re: Plugins Age and When to Upgrade Moodle

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hi Greg,

I used to wait, mainly to make sure that the addons that I can't do without, get updated to work with the new Moodle. The longest I waited was going from 1.9.19 to 2.x because I was using a non-standard wiki that would not upgrade. I finally changed to a new from scratch 2.3. Support for the non-standard wiki disappeared so I bit the bullet, as the saying goes, and converted everything to the book module by hand. (378 step-by-step tutorials)

Since I run my own small Linux server, now I start another development Moodle using the code for the next upcoming version. I try out all the addons in it and try fixing any problems myself. If I can't, I try to contact the developer and let them know and usually they are very good about getting the addon fixed for the new release.

One other thing I started doing to help me get a feel for early adoption or waiting a bit on the new version, is to help out with the testing cycle just before it's scheduled release. I try to run most of the tests that have anything to do with the parts of Moodle I use. If no one else has passed it, I pass the test, but even the ones other people complete, I try them out too. The added advantage of doing all the extra tests is that it helps get me up to speed on all the capablities I never knew about as well as the totally new capabilities of the latest release.

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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Plugins Age and When to Upgrade Moodle

by Greg Padberg -

I do have a test server (OK so it's just an old netbook), which I use to test themes, plugins, and upgrades.  My production server is virtualized so I take a snapshot of the VM before applying any significant changes.  It is nice that the system can be rolled back immediately if anything breaks during an upgrade.

During the last Moodle upgrade (2.6 to 2.7) I have culled a few plugins (mostly themes).  And before installing any new plugins I make sure that they are fairly well known & tested & supported (not abandoned, and quite likely to be supported on new Moodle versions).

Plugins are always a bit of a gamble an unknown, I generally prefer features that have been integrated into Moodle overall as it simplifies upgrading and removes any doubt about being able to keep the features while moving forward.

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