Lounge

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your comments! Have you made a feature request in the Issue Tracker? If so, I will go there and vote for it. Don't spend another minute discussing these points here. A lot of people agree with you, and just need a proposal to rally around.

I am a developer of perpetually half-baked modules (over ten of them). I don't release seven of them because my capacity to maintain and handle inquiries is limited. So the ones that our school does use actively I release. Ones, that I think have a fair chance of continued funding. I think part of the my assessment of whether to use a new module or not comes from the degree of commitment by a developer. When OU commits to something or when a colleague I know well makes a committment, I trust that module better. I also watch how quickly bugs are fixed or new versions created.

I am fundamentally happy with the current system (though a more formal system of ratings would be nice, as I outlined above) because of the organic nature of development. I think there is no evidence that commercial or open source development is more or less wasteful. It is good to "waste" time on an experiment because through it we learn about good education--what works and does not work. Teacher-developers are probably the best ones because they are close to the learners and can trial and revise in quick cycles.

Cheers,
Don