Hi, just a quick note for anyone who's seen my posts about improvements to our forum software (there's probably one just below this) and is wondering who I am.
I'm one developer (that's business-speak for 'computer programmer') working within one area of the Open University, primarily on the system that runs course websites. (Incidentally, that includes this blogging system. I'm using it because, well, dogfood.)
My blog's certainly not official in any way, shape, or form. I'm just a programmer!
In particular, I do talk here about the work I'm doing, and when it will be 'released'. But for all sorts of reasons, even if I've built some software, there are often long delays before anyone gets to use it, and there may well be other alternative systems that are still in use, etc. There are good reasons for this - for instance, we don't like to make significant changes to software in use during a presentation of a course. It's also quite a good idea to test things after they've been written to make sure they actually work. That kind of thing.
If that means I've shown off something that looks nice, but it isn't in use yet on your course - apologies! Hopefully it will be used on a course you take at some point in future.
(I did get a few questions about this, so thought there might be other people wondering, and I don't want to cause any confusion. Sorry for this even-more-boring-than-usual post.)
About me
Hi, just a quick note for anyone who's seen my posts about improvements to our forum software (there's probably one just below this) and is wondering who I am.
I'm one developer (that's business-speak for 'computer programmer') working within one area of the Open University, primarily on the system that runs course websites. (Incidentally, that includes this blogging system. I'm using it because, well, dogfood.)
My blog's certainly not official in any way, shape, or form. I'm just a programmer!
In particular, I do talk here about the work I'm doing, and when it will be 'released'. But for all sorts of reasons, even if I've built some software, there are often long delays before anyone gets to use it, and there may well be other alternative systems that are still in use, etc. There are good reasons for this - for instance, we don't like to make significant changes to software in use during a presentation of a course. It's also quite a good idea to test things after they've been written to make sure they actually work. That kind of thing.
If that means I've shown off something that looks nice, but it isn't in use yet on your course - apologies! Hopefully it will be used on a course you take at some point in future.
(I did get a few questions about this, so thought there might be other people wondering, and I don't want to cause any confusion. Sorry for this even-more-boring-than-usual post.)