Martin Dougiamas

I suspect this conversation has gone way off the original topic now, where Anu was just asking about where he/she could get support for a company's Moodle.  

However, I do want to address a bit of what you've written here, Derek from my point of view.

• Yes, Moodle is a platform, like an operating system for an LMS.  HQ works hard to make it stable platform that others can build upon, so that they can customise it via plugins and config into exactly the system required for a task.  This is the best way to use our limited resources.
  
• Some user features do need to be done in core, and when we do we always try to do things that benefit the widest range of users across all sectors.  Our user stories include small and large classes, all sectors.
  
• Yes, we also listen carefully (but not exclusively) to what Moodle Partners tell us, but of course they just represent a wide range of end-users, and they are generally just passing those concerns on to us prioritised by how many clients are asking for (or suffering from) something.
• We are putting a lot of effort into getting specs directly from research (we have a new dedicated Research Director now) and user working groups (especially watch for our Moots next year!)   The gradebook changes were specified by end users in the Gradebook working group (almost all end-users) and this is the way of the future.  I hope you've noticed how many surveys we've run this year, too.
  
• I don't see any features for the "average person" that would not just as useful for those with a big IT budget.  If you have some examples of things like this that you think have been overlooked then I'd be glad to hear them!

Cheers,
Martin

Just watched it, thanks Urs.  I think the complexity of things like pointer/touch event models in the future really make a strong argument for us to stick to a framework that can help us with as much of the work as possible.

Jean-Michel, thanks for the reflections in your post and I can only say that I'm sorry about the increased workload that you see in implementing all the additional tools for testing and so on.  I also want to make developing easier but at the same time we also need to make the platform richer and more powerful so there is a tension.  Good documentation, examples and templates should help.

I've asked all the HQ developers to read your post and to read it again any time they are thinking about a new API or subsystem. 

I think everyone would like to see some intelligent parsing of the reply to remove quoting.

If anyone can find robust code or an algorithm anywhere for this (in any language) please it to Andrew here or in MDL-3174.

Perhaps we just need a user preference in messaging somewhere to turn the confirmations on and off, with a link in the footer of all emails to turn them off quickly.

When you turn them off you'd get one last email containing the description of what happened and a link to turn them on again.