Arch Tea Time: 2020-03-19 (Blended Dev Ideas)

Owned by Nimisha Asthagiri (Deactivated)
Last updated: Apr 21, 2020
3 min read

Topics

Propose topics for us to discuss here.

  • Blended Development (italicized blue = probably self-contained effort; red = will probably need more hand-holding with edX engineers; bold green = on blended board)

    • We have an opportunity to outsource technical debt or technical investments through the Blended Development model. What are some possible projects to propose?

      • Frontend replatforming

        • Miscellaneous MFE-ification +1

          • NOTE:

            • For feature parity, the frontend rewrite wasn’t tough (based on experience with Logistration hackathon)

            • When APIs are missing, they can opt for BFF (Backend for Frontend) APIs for simpler features

            • There is probably some low hanging fruit here but also some fairly complex ones that would be less approachable.

        • Studio as an MFE

      • Backend replatforming

        • XModule => XBlock Conversion (FWIW, this is a planned project)

        • Move authn to its own service

        • Theming

      • Deprecations

        • Shopping Cart

        • Pattern Library Removal

        • Old LMS profile & account settings pages

      • Feature Spec Documentation - Document how different parts of the platform work.

      • Better support for ed tech standards and external content:

        • LTI Provider work

        • Bringing xAPI/Caliper integration over the line (already started by Appsembler and RaccoonGang)

      • Tech Investments

        • Pub/Sub messaging (maybe this is something we’d want to do ourselves on second thought) -1

        • Separate celery worker containers for edxapp in devstack

      • Feature Dev

        • edX Live (along the lines of what George’s hackathon team demoed)

        • Shopify Integration

        • Netsuite Integration

        • Notification Framework

      • Upgrades

        • Automated code cleanup via pyupgrade (six removal, remove deprecated code patterns, etc.) +1

        • Python 3.8 upgrade (3.5 support ends later this year) +1

        • Django 3.0 testing (get ahead of the curve this time) +1

        • ElasticSearch 5 upgrade

      • OEP Compliance

        • Better compliance with highest-priority repo health checks +1

      • Warnings & linting

        • Better Python warning reporting from test suites, fix existing warnings

        • Make edx-platform score 10/10 in pylint (might be more INCR-ish)

    • If we outsource projects to multiple development teams outside, how can we scale development without (1) edX engineers being bottlenecks, (2) further increase in the platform’s complexity, (3) causing production fires?

      • ORA & Teams as an example

        • ORA is non-trivial (maybe 2x complex as Teams)

        • Need a tech owner that coordinates the dev

          • Treat the external devs as part of your team

          • Developed in line with internal expectations

      • Internal “tech owner” / “reviewer”

        • Can be a burden unless reviewed externally first

        • Higher expectations on the internal dev

        • Blended role - not just an engineer anymore

      • Training the community to develop behind feature toggles

      • Sharing pager duty of edx.org

    • Notes

      • edX Engineers: ~80

      • Community Contributors: ~150

      • Project Size: generally larger than INCR project size

      • Project Type: scope is clear; requirements are clear

      • Developer expertise: intermediate-level engineers

      • Blended JIRA Project

  • Review Arch-BOM’s Q4 goals and projects (and where we are with Q3).