Developer Area/Developer Meetings/90

Agenda for the 90th Mahara developer meeting on Tuesday, 12 July 2022 at 22:00:00 UTC (check your time zone).

We will meet online using Big Blue Button (A Catalyst staff member will initiate the call).

Our #Mahara channel on Matrix will be our backup in case there are problems with the web conferencing tool and we'll need to chat to resolve it. You can connect to our Matrix channel also using the #mahara channel on Freenode IRC.

• Chair: Dianne Tennent
• Minute taker: Kristina Hoeppner

Chair and minute taker duties explained

Agenda

Items from previous meetings

• Robert - Ongoing - Look into improving the get_user function for submissions management, e.g. a bulk version and a bare-bones version
• Kristina - Lang pack manager docs in the Manual
• Kristina - Two webinars - details will be posted to the forums

New items

• Devs - PHP 8 compatibility
• Devs - embedding more security awareness into our processes

General items

• Any other business
• Next meeting and chair

Minutes

Audio recording

• Attendees
  • Dianne, Mahara developer, Catalyst IT, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand
  • Gold, Mahara developer, Catalyst IT, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand
  • Doris, Mahara developer, Catalyst IT, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand
  • Adam, Developer, LearnOpenTech, San Antonio, TX, U.S.A.
  • Beck, LearnOpenTech, San Antonio, TX, U.S.A.
  • Kristina, Mahara project lead, Catalyst IT, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand

• Items from previous meetings
  • Robert - Ongoing - Look into improving the get_user function for submissions management, e.g. a bulk version and a bare-bones version: Not done yet due to other work, in particular PHP8 and Behat tests in Bootstrap5.
  • Kristina - Lang pack manager docs in the Manual: It's documented.
  • Kristina - Two webinars - details will be posted to the forums: 'Introduction to Mahara' and 'New features in 22.04' were recorded.
• PHP8 compatibility:
  • Using PHPStan and phan to clear up PHP 8 compatibility errors that are found.
  • Looking at Behat tests that are failing and fixing them.
  • See screenshot for some stats, e.g. errors are down from 335 to 78 for PHPStan.
  • Plan is to still have PHP7 and PHP8.1 run in parallel for Mahara 22.10. Whether 23.04 will also be a dual compatibility release isn't decided yet as it depends on our progress. Officially, PHP 7 will fall out of support in November 2022.
  • If we don't have full compatibility, esp. for third-party libraries / integrations, we will mention that so that organisations can determine whether they can switch to PHP 8.1 or would need to stay on an operating system that continues to support PHP 7.
• More security awareness in our processes
  • Writing code in a secure way has always been part of our practice and also code review, but it could be more explicitly stated in our coding and review guidelines, e.g. at minimum around the OWASP Top 10.
  • ToDo: Include some basic checks into the Makefile when pushing code to code review. Robert started looking into that, but hasn't finished yet.
  • ToDo: Update coding and code review guidelines.
• Any other business: Ideas from LearnOpenTech
  • Integrate with other tools, e.g. NextCloud - could look into the Cloud plugin, but beware that it will need some updates. It was developed with OwnCloud in mind, and since NextCloud is a fork, some of the infrastructure might be able to be re-used. Like with Mahara core, the plugin should also receive a security review. Catalyst has only looked into some blocktypes that were relevant to Catalyst work a few years ago.
  • Create demo content for K-12.
  • Think about gradebook plugin, but still more to talk with homeschool people who are the main group of people for whom to offer their Mahara. SmartEvidence is too complex for a lot of the purposes.
• Next meeting and chair
  • 13 July 2022, 22:00 UTC
  • Chair: Kristina, Minute taker: Doris