Coding Notes

A while back when Mozilla released Firefox 1.0 and I started to explore the extensions I was amazed at the basic utility that I gained from some of the extensions. This made me think about the methodology of Mozilla in developing Firefox, I was sure that they would add some of the extensions into the core code base of Firefox. When 1.5 and then 2.0 where released I was somewhat amazed that they hadn’t added any functionality that where in my favorite extensions into the Firefox core program.

My senior project is essentially to develop a new quiz type for the MOODLE platform. The M in MOODLE stands for Modular, unfortunately the MOODLE platform wasn’t developed with the same methodology that Firefox was. MOODLE comes prepackaged with several modules, like a wiki, forums, and even a feature rich quiz engine some of which are in the core code base. Since my senior project is to develop a new quiz type the fact that MOODLE includes its own quiz engine would seem like a good thing, possibly less work for the team I’m working with on the senior project.

I now understand why Mozilla didn’t add some of the Firefox extensions to its code base. In order to spawn creativity and encourage extension development the extension can’t already exist. The problem with including extensions, no matter how basic, in the core code is that if anyone wants to add on to the functionality of the software and a module/extension already exists then most likely it will share some of the same functionality and developers, rather than develop the new extension, will simply learn to live with what exists. Unless specifically asked for (like my senior project) when something already exists in the code base it simply stifles development of anything new that follows the same functionality line.

I will say that MOODLE is very modular and has several great places where key components can be added. The problem with MOODLE’s design is that it includes too many modules as standard code base items, meaning they have documented the fact that certain modules are part of the core MOODLE code base. This creates difficulties when developing a new quiz engine because it would be easier to add on to the quiz module rather than creating an entirely new quiz module. However, since MOODLE is open source we can use the existing quiz engine and from it create a new quiz module that is our own, the problem with this is that it creates parallel development paths. Anytime MOODLE updates the quiz engine we would have to extract, modify, and re-release our own module in order to allow for the full functionality of the quiz engine that we are developing within our new functionality.

So what’s the moral of my little story? Essentially its this: when developing software that is designed to be modular/extendable make sure that you only develop the core code base, and don’t start adding new modules to the core code. Keep modular software modular. If MOODLE had left the quiz engine out of the core code base and marketed it as simply another module it would help but wouldn’t solve our problems. Doing this would however allow us to possibly work with developers on a smaller issue for development than have to look at an entire software package to be changed/modified. This is a hard thing to do though, especially for MOODLE, since you want all users to be able to do standard tasks, like take a quiz. But the key is to keep modular software modular.  At least as far I’m concerned.