Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: Re: LAMS 1.1 Workshop Presentation in London

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Ooppss... Thanks James. I have fixed the links now:

Here is the presentation [Powerpoint (3.9MB) and in PDF format (2.9MB)].

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Dean Shankle

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Thanks, guys.

1.1 is going to have some very interesting, and useful, features. I looked around at the development area and did not see a projected roll out date (which doesn't mean its not there, just that I didn't see it :)). Any estimates?

Dean

Posted by Dean Shankle

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Dean,

Estimates are evil

But here's the plan for the roll out of 1.1 throughout 2006:

By the end of March, we should have authoring completed and monitor close to be finished as well. So by then we will start the translations and open CVS for developers to start having a look at the new architecture and -hopefully- help us with some LAMS tools as well. So far we have about 4 or 5 tools as well, so they become "templates" for developers to start creating their own.

By the beginning of the second semester of 2006, we should have a neat beta version. Given a month or two for some serious testing -we will engage the community on this- we should be then moving to production-like version shortly after.

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Dean Shankle

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Ernie,

I've found the moodle/lams integration very useful and having new toys to look forward to is always fun.

I'm hoping that 1.1 is going to be an easy install over my present moodle/lams integration but I presume all of that will become clear as the rollout nears.

Thanks for the information.

Dean

Posted by Dean Shankle

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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> I'm hoping that 1.1 is going to be an easy install over my
> present moodle/lams integration but I presume all of that
> will become clear as the rollout nears.

OK, on the Moodle front, that will be probably really straight forward with no hiccups. And that's because Moodle has had a modular architecture since the beginning, making the upgrade of any of its module a straight forward task.

However, LAMS -as you have probably seen in the presentation- wasn't built originally like that and moreover 1.1 is a complete rewrite instead of an upgrade from 1.0.x. Therefore there are quite a few challenges to overcome with the 1.0.x to the 1.1 transition.

One thing we would need to provide is being able to import into 1.1, sequences built using 1.0.x. So that will allow you to export your sequences from your 1.0.x and import them into your 1.1 server.

Potentially, there are ways to write database scripts that also do transitions of other things (classes, users, content, etc). However, I doubt that we will have lots of resources to allocate to this, as we want to concentrate on 1.1 development and testing.

Maybe some people here in the community can help us out on this one?

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Dean Shankle

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Ernie,

Based on what I saw I thought there might be some issues. However, 1.0 is such a great tool for what I do I will be patient.

One question that you may or may not be able to answer: Will it be technically feasible to run both 1.0 and 1.1 at the same time? In other words, if importing sequences is problematic will I be able to just keep a legacy copy of 1.0 on the server and continue running sequences that I'm creating now and build new ones in 1.1 going forward?

As a user (not a developer) I certainly appreciate all the great things the development community accomplishes.

Thanks again,

Dean

Posted by Dean Shankle

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Dean,

> Will it be technically feasible to run both 1.0 and 1.1 at
> the same time?

Excellent question...

On top of my head, I believe you would have no problems running two versions of JBOSS (the application server that LAMS 1.0.x and 1.1 use) to run both instances of LAMS (in a same server). If you have this in two server, then that's trivial.

In principle, you can still run your old sequences in 1.0.x but all your new ones will be on 1.1. The single-sign-on bits should work for both instances of LAMS without a problem. However, there's a minor modification to the LAMS/Moodle module to send the students to the right instance of LAMS. But again, that modification is quite trivial.

Woow... It's good to think that we can accommodate for this even if we didn't design it to work like that.

> As a user (not a developer) I certainly appreciate all
> the great things the development community accomplishes.

Well, with 1.1 there's going to be a lot of testing involved and we would like to have power users like you to help us with the testing.

As much as we like developers , we also need people that have a clear understanding of useful use cases based on their experience, exposure to clients, etc. Having read some of your postings in the LAMS Community and the LD Book Study at moodle.org, I think you fit this profile perfectly So please don't hesitate to participate even if you are not a tech-head.

And your last question just perfectly exemplify this... as we -techos- never thought of having a Moodle server with two different instances of LAMS running.

So your comments are very much welcome and helpful!

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Dean Shankle

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Ernie,

Thanks for your encouragement. I will glady be part of the testing (yes, on a separate server) and I will keep using your excellent product and continue to point out ways that you can make it better.

Dean

Posted by Dean Shankle