Discussion Redesign Architecture

Background

• Discussion Forum Architecture Notes (from January 2015)

Initial Random Thoughts

• Where should we implement the feature?
  
  • Option 1: IDA
    • This doesn't seem like an appropriate solution since discussions should be tightly integrated into the LMS
    • Note: the comment service will continue to live in its own repo (even if ported to Python: Comment Service Python Port)
  • Option 2: pip-installed feature from separate repo
    • Model on the ORA2 repo: https://github.com/edx/edx-ora2
    • It will make it very easy for the Open Source community to choose not to install the feature
    • Same challenges as ORA2 (see /wiki/spaces/TNL/pages/40862230)
      • How do we do integration testing?
      • How do we integrate static assets into the pipeline?
    • It won't be possible to share code with edx-platform
    • If the old UI remains then some portion will be duplicated into the new repo too
    • Could live in the same repo with the new Python port
  • 3: new Django app in LMS
    • This has worked well for teams: https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/tree/master/lms/djangoapps/teams
    • This is probably the most efficient option to go with
  • Option 4: modify the existing UI in place
    • The current code is sprinkled throughout the LMS which makes it hard to manage
    • Changing the UI in place could complicate concurrently supporting the old UI
• General approach
  
  • Reuse the shared components from the teams feature (cards, pagination components etc)
  • Switch to the new Discussion API (Discussion API)
    • This is probably needed to support pagination with the components built for teams
    • This is a good chance to migrate so that web and mobile are using the same API
  • Need a new component
• Should we convert the XModule to an XBlock
  
  • Solutions had a PR to merge back their XBlock implementation: https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/pull/5565
  • If we move discussions UI into a separate repo then it can't be an xmodule
  • How do we migrate courses to the new XBlock? Is it a gradual rollout or an immediate switchover
  • How do we declare the dependencies for a new XBlock?
    • AMD in XBlocks project proposed for /wiki/spaces/HACK/pages/38863619
  • How do we integrate into the production pipeline?

• Adoption of the UI Toolkit and the Pattern Library
  • See UITK and UXPL
  • We have to make the switch at some point so it would be good to start on an all new project
  • If the UI is built in a separate repo then the shared components from teams will need to be moved out of edx-platform (cards, paginated components etc)
  • How much does forums depend upon legacy edX styles?
  • How do we support theming?
  • How can we render inline discussions in the courseware if they depend upon the pattern library?
• Testing
• Can the discussion API be a standalone feature that could be used outside of edx-platform?
  • Is there any benefit to yet another open source discussion solution?
  • It would be great if the repo was self sufficient to support testing, independent development etc
  • What happens with capabilities that are edX-specific?
    • Do we have to build teams knowledge into the UX/APIs?
    • How do we feed last activity information back to the platform?
• What is our rollout strategy?
  • Do we need to maintain the old UI for some period?
    • It will be more involved to rewrite the Discussion tab to use the new component
    • It probably makes sense to only switch inline discussions to the new UI
  • How do we migrate courses to use the XBlock (assuming we do this)?

Story breakdown

TBD