As a web developer just starting to try to understand .LRN/openACS I have some comments and suggestions.
The .LRN documentation is lacking/frustrating. It is hard to determine whether .LRN will do what I want based on the documentation. It would be helpful if there were instructions on what to do with .LRN after installation. How is it intended to be used? How do you put things in LORS, etc?
The support situation for .LRN seems to be lacking. Posts on the .LRN Q&A forum sometimes go unanswered. It doesn't seem like many people are reading/answering questions there. The #openacs channel usually only seems to have one person who knows anything about .LRN. Most open source projects I've worked with as a user have better support.
Are all the .LRN power users and developers hiding on some super secret mailing list somewhere?
How do I give feedback/request features/offer assistance with a module? How do I find out who authored/supports a module? How do I get involved with what is going on with a module?
All the cool .LRN stuff seems to be in alpha/cvs only. Is it working well enough to put into production? Companies like Solution Grove seem to have it in production, but I don't know how because certain modules won't install and/or can't be pulled out of cvs. Is there some super secret way of getting things to work?
How do I start getting into development/customization of .LRN? It seems like there is a huge barrier to getting into development. I tried going through the sample 'here is how you create a module in openacs' but had problems getting it working. People I talked to on #openacs say it is tough to learn the openACS API. What resources are there besides the standard documentation?
Are there mailing lists for .LRN/openacs? The forums seem to be kind of slow/lacking in response. Maybe if there were mailing lists (gateway'd to forums or a web archive) that .LRN users were encouraged to join for support, a larger group of people would be able to help with problems, etc.
I know if I am using postgresql and running into problems with pl/pgsql I can subscribe to the psql-sql mailing list, post questions, and get answers from power users or even postgresql developers that monitor the list.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Dennis
