A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Simon Kray -
Number of replies: 7

Hi all,

I'm going to be having a look at moodle for the next few weeks.

Just wanted to say hi really, but also wanted to say that i was supprised to see that a system with such good ratings/feedback as moodle still has interface and code together in the same page...

If you look at other system now, such as PHPBB (i know its not a cms, but you get the idea), all the interface is held in template files, which makes it very easy to edit how the pages look and feel, while keeping the php code seperate.

I see moodle uses echos to output the page.

I know this isnt really a quesiton, as nothing can be done about this wink
It's just basicly a bit of a moan as i like to customise and edit.

Anyway, look forward to talking to everyone! (well, maybe not everyone, seen as there over 150,000 users wink

Cheers.

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In reply to Simon Kray

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Art Lader -
Hi, Simon,

Welcome.

No need to be dissapointed, because one of the things that you will like about Moodle is that the community is open to constructive suggestions - especially if you are willing to roll up your sleeves from time to time and contribute to development or in assisting with support.

You sound like the kind of member who could do that.

Happy Moodling!

Regards,
Art
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In reply to Simon Kray

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Vu Hung -
Hi Simon,
Welcome to the Moodle community.

I think you should put your questions on theme forum or so. As far as I notice, there were also the discussions whether to use templates or not in Moodle. I think the developers have own their reasons to not use templates. You should search the forums to find out more.

Have a good time,
Vu
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In reply to Simon Kray

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
There are several ways to skin that cat, and this has been discussed many times before. Our goal is basically to produce clean, accessible XHTML code which you can customise at will using CSS (see the theme subdirectory of Moodle). Our CSS system is pretty advanced, allowing multi-layering at many levels.

If there's something you need to change that you find you CAN'T change using the themes, let us know in the forum on Themes.
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In reply to Simon Kray

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Having spent many years doing professional (and hobby) web application development using several programming languages I can understand that you raised an eyebrow seeing the mix of interface and application code.

From my own experience of trying to keep them entirely separate I have found it to be a hard goal to achieve. So when I first evaluated Moodle I figured that if that particular nirvana had not been achieved, I'd focus on all the other good stuff. And I continue to be very, very impressed.

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In reply to Simon Kray

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Urs Hunkler -
Picture of Core developers

Hi Simon,

welcome to Moodle and the Moodle community.

"...also wanted to say that i was supprised to see that a system with such good ratings/feedback as moodle still has interface and code together in the same page..."

To get most interface design flexibility for Moodle there must be strong arguments to justify the effort on the programming side.

Please read the other discussions in the Moodle forums and tell us what your arguments are for a clear separation of interface and code. And how you would see your work become easier.

Thank you very much.
Urs

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In reply to Urs Hunkler

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
To be honest I think the real answer is pretty clear; it falls into two parts:

1) Templating languages in PHP (such as Smarty) look attractive initially but are in fact a categorically stupid idea because PHP is already a templating language. PHP is perfectly good for writing templates. (It is pretty crap for writing anything else.)

2) Separating interface from implementation is an excellent programming practice and would strongly benefit Moodle. For example it would enable wider use of the unit testing we now support, helping to increase reliability. There are some cases where Moodle already does follow this pattern. Implementing this more consistently, however, would be a huge task and disruptive of other work.

There are lots of other areas where Moodle code quality falls below what many would consider acceptable. Some of these have practical reasons, such as the support for archaic software versions (PHP 4) - which limits the use of exceptions and object-oriented programming; or database technology that lacks fundamental features (MySQL, Oracle) - which limits the reliance on transactions that would otherwise increase robustness.

Some of these do not have good reasons and were just built like that a long time ago and nobody has the time to change it - plus, if somebody did change it, because the system isn't very modular, it would be quite likely to break other parts...

One other factor is that Moodle is that the developers generally seem to consider functionality more important than architecture; 'it's what's up front that counts'. Moodle is competing with some pretty appalling commercial alternatives (WebCT or whatever) and while changing Moodle may be difficult and unreliable, changing commercial software is not usually even possible.

Really it is clear that Moodle is a bit of a mess technically so you have two choices; either deal with that, or move on to another project. (That's something I had to accept, too; of course, since I'm paid to work on our Moodle-based VLE system, I would kind of have to actually quit my job if I couldn't deal with it. smile)

--sam
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In reply to sam marshall

Re: A bit disappointed with moodle on first glance.... :-(

by Simon Kray -

I'm sure i'll get used to the way moodle works. -- It did look easy to understand when i "looked inside" -- just different to what i expected.

Thanks for all your comments and replies everyone! smile

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