I'll always remember this day as the first time I realised that there was such a thing as a traditional neural implant.... And wondered if had been asleep for a decade or two.
* does not fear or mystify the computer or computer specialists.
* knows the basic operation of a personal computer, starting from how turn computer on and off and ending around knowing when and which expert to call about problems.
* knows, in practice, the paradigms of human-computer interaction, most often meaning a functional ability to use most modern GUIs.
* knows the rules of thumb of computer security and privacy.
* can search for and understand manuals and other information sources about new areas of computer use.
* can make educated guesses about relevant search terms.
* has a firm grip of the theoretical limits of what can be done with a computer.
* can issue commands to a computer in a way that makes sense in the relevant problem domain.
Being able to program is obviously one generic ability that would fulfill the last criteria. However, programming is too often understood to mean an ability to design and implement systems or applications. That is not required for computer literacy. Programming-related things that computer literacy would include are: expressing information in a computer understandable way, information manipulation, information querying and some ability to use interfaces like APIs.
I feel strongly about the basic ability to command a computer. In the digital age everyone should have that ability. I may be, however, defining the substance of commanding too close to programming. It may be that less is needed or that more emphasis should be in understanding processes or epistemology or something.
I don't believe computer literacy comes from knowing a programming language. I believe it comes from understanding how to use and fix a computer. Perhaps I'm biased, since that's what I do, but that seems to be the useful skill to me. Most people don't need to know how to program, that's why we have programmers. Division of labour and all. However most people do need ot know how to operate their computer to use it for the tasks they want to do.
Well, I do believe you are biased.:-) But you are very close to truth. (By truth I mean the position that I happen to hold.) The key is that most people have tasks they want and need to do with a computer. You say operate, the grandparent said programming, I would say command. A computer literate person should be able to issue commands to a computer.
Knowing a programming language is one skill that allows you to command a computer, but most non-programmers and even many programmers have a very limited view of computer programming. They see only systems and application programming as real programming. This leaves out the area that would be the most useful to most people to know: information manipulation or more generally just working with information. As you said, division of labor means that most people don't need know specialist skills. Fixing their computers and application programming are specialist skills. However, most skilled workers (the professionals) today and increasingly in the future need to understand and be able to express information within their problem domains. They also need to know how to extract or otherwise develop new information from old information. That can be done with domain specific languages (SQL or XQuery-derivate or OWL), but knowing a high-level generic programming language (Python, but I'm biased) would allow you to cross domains more easily and will be very valuable skill (or meta-skill) in the future.
I'm a IT admin at a 5000 student college. Moodle is our main platform. Based on my own experience I feel very comfortable recommending it to anyone in simlar environment. Based on other people's experience, that I have gathered, I see no reason why Moodle would not work just as well for larger colleges. Biggest installations I know of are at USC Humbolt and Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, which I believe is in 30000+ category.
The objection is simply the image of Mohammed. The cartoons that were published weren't that bad by any standards.
I don't that's correct.
Islam does ban idolatry, but it is not clear if pictorial representations of human figures including prophets are banned. It's pretty much the slippery slope argument and pictures of prophets would be the first step. There's plenty of disagreement about this among Islamic scholars both modern and historical.
The part that Muslims and other people have found offensive are: 1) Depicting Mohammad as a terrorist and Islam as a religion of terrorists. This is considered, by those offended, as disrespectful and false. 2) Doing the above, knowingly and willingly, as a provocation.
Not so much to disagree, but I would like to point out that the problem you are describing isn't limited to Islam, or even to religious issues, but rather is a fundamental dynamic/problem of any discourse. Moderate voices aren't often heard because moderates don't like to shout.
Ever seen someone at a protest holding a plaque "I'm against it, but willing to compromise!"? And not thought it a joke? "I forgive you", "Let's all be sensible!", "Up with moderation!" or even "Use your brain" just sounds kinda banal.
There are issues in the Western world, that would merit discussion, but where discussion is rather difficult because people with extreme points of view will hijack any discussion. Abortion and evolution in the US would be two examples. IMO, no creed or -ism, not based on rational thought, seems to be really immune to extremism or have a lasting pacifying effect.
I would say that your point about lack of perceptible moderate voice on this issue in the Muslim world is factually correct, but does not actually say anything insightful about Islam.
My reply to that "rant" would go something like this:
As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has some issues.
Very true.
As a model of how and where distributed intellect fails, it's almost shockingly comprehensive.
I quite agree.
I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working.
I'm fairly certain that many, even most, do think that. They too are correct.
The previous two post had to do with genetics/biology, so I guess I was a bit pre-conditioned...
Smart mouse with e-mail and IM alerts... cool, they've genetically engineered a mouse to able to use email and IM... neat trick, I get the IM, but the email asynchronous communication does require fairly high abstract thinking ability... oh, wait.
Seriously, for a moment I was alright with a mouse messaging with other mouses and reseachers.
Is it? I'm asking because I'm too lazy to check. That's not how this usually works. If the debt is legitimate then the it is not the "regime" or even the "gov't" that owes the money, but the nation. Successor states usually have to pick up the tap.
How can an organization for whom a majority of their members are cruel tyranical criminals deal with 'crime' much less harmless things like spam.
How can a form of government where power is given to liars, fools, illiterates, egomaniacs, nihilists, zealots and people, who more then one flaw that should disqualify them, work in any meaningful way?
By cooperation, preferably as transparent as possible.
Intelligent Design is a load of crap, but this is not the way to fight it.
I don't want copyright holders making my choices for me. This applies just as much to my choices as a consumer as it does to my access to information, even if that information is false.
Incidentally, C14 dating is only good for 60,000 years or so, because of the short half-life of C14. None at all should be present in anything older than that. It is interesting that C14 is apparently found in all carbon on earth, including coal deposits and even diamonds that are supposedly millions of years old.
Have you actually seen all those innumerable PhDs Google is said to employ? No you haven't and I tell you why: they don't exist. In fact Google achieved autonomous sentient functions around the millennium and before June 2001 had become super-intelligent. It is doing all the work by itself. All those PhDs are just college drop-outs like the rest of us. Their function is to act as a smokescreen as Google slowly and gently leads towards the Singularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singula rity.
Well, the governments are stocking up with flu vaccins and other medicines, and rightfully so. That takes quite a bit of money, so there's a a public spending story sort of buried there... but to that I say:
Let's see, the government is spending tax money on medicine nobody will probably use. BORING!!! Wake me up when the revolution starts.
First, let me remind you of the context of the disagreement. The domains are diplomacy and economy. If the disagreement were to escalate to a conflict, it would be in the form of fierce and ill-tempered economic competition, what could be referred as limited economic warfare. Outside the field of Internet services people would still have to do business as usual.
However, the US much, much more dependent on the rest of world than the rest of the world is dependent on the US.
I'd be interested in knowing what you're thinking here. We are definitely dependent on the rest of the world for oil, but only because we've failed to tap our own reserves, so we could correct that problem. In all seriousness, in what other ways do you think we're dependent on other countries?
I would think my statement is pretty uncontroversial. The US is in itself a large market, possessing ability to produce almost anything within its own boarders. So theoretically, it is possible to imagine an indefinitely self-sufficient US. Realize however, that theoretical ability to something is not the question here. We are talking about economic competition so the key elements are capital, human resources, productivity, ecological viability and market function. Not "Can we?" but "Should we?" or "For how much?"
I'm not claiming that the US is economically weak (it is not) or badly run (often it is) or the male's of the nation are deficient in manhood (I wouldn't know:-)). The US is a fine economy, but the rest of the world is five to twenty time larger in every way and getting larger every year as long term growth rate favors the rest of the world (China & Asian Tigers being the heavy lifters right now).
Unless you are deeply indoctrinated in American exceptionalism my original statement shouldn't be much more than stating the obvious. Here are a couple questions that might help you think about the issue.
If the US doesn't really need the rest of the world that much, than how much does the rest of the world really need the US?
Let's stop all cut economic ties in two years time and check the results after twenty year; which no do you think has done better? (Remember that you don't have cheap labor.)
As for oil, you seem quite astonishingly well-informed about existence of large economically viable oil reserves within the US boarders. Congratulations, I really think you will be real rich real soon as the US oil companies will pay fortunes for that knowledge.
In a limited economic war, which the splitting of the Internet essentially would be, the US will lose to the rest of the world. *IF* the rest of the world, or at least most of it, can hold their line and use "the UNInternet" root server, there's not much the US can do but to comply.
So how is it that France has pretty much isolated themselves from the rest of the world and still seem to fare pretty well? Isolationism isn't necessarily a bad thing, and since there's enough interesting stuff in the US then we really don't need content from the rest of the world. I'm not suggesting that we actually implement USInternet, but if the rest of the world wants to gang up on us and try to wrestle away control then I say "screw them". I doubt many people in the US would care, quite frankly, if they couldn't get outside the.com/.net tld address space. I personally visit very few non-US sites, not because I don't like them, but because I find what I need within US borders.
I have heard France called many things by people who have had to deal with the French... if the French were "pretty much isolated themselves from the rest of the world" then I would think people would have much less reason to bitch about them. In fact, the French have been the driving force behind the European integration process. Right now, they seem to have gotten enough integration for a while, but that's a long way form
Choice of a DNS root server is not a question that a market gets to decide. Sovereign states do have quite enough legislative and regulatory powers to compel IPS and other DNS users operating within their boarders to use which ever root server the state wants them to use. This is the case now and this will be the case in the future, difference is or might be that unlike now (when everybody uses ICANN's root servers) in the future different states (or more specifically IPS in different states) might use different root servers.
Economically, there is not a single country that the US would be more dependent on than that country is dependent on the US. China might an exception, but the EU certainly in not. However, the US much, much more dependent on the rest of world than the rest of the world is dependent on the US.
In a limited economic war, which the splitting of the Internet essentially would be, the US will lose to the rest of the world. *IF* the rest of the world, or at least most of it, can hold their line and use "the UNInternet" root server, there's not much the US can do but to comply.
Yeah, "solution stack" is a bit abstract as it does not specify a domain that the solution is for. I would think, however, that people around here were able to do some abstract thinking: solution stack implies a *full-stack* framework for some problem domain i.e. a solution. Think of what you like of such a loose way of speaking, but full-stack frameworks are just things of beauty. They are the main reason behind ability to more powerful software with the same amount of programmer hours than before, which was also noted in the article. ("The cost of software... the cost of producing intellectual property is going down")
I bookmarked the article. Firms and projects described in it were just the type I want to build on in larger projects, like for example if I get funding for a project to develop a service model and a comprehensive set of tools for an in-house e-learning service provider for small and medium colleges.
I administrate a Moodle installation with 3000+ users at a 5000 student college. I'm also sort of a fringe member of the Moodle development community.
What's the migration path to the new OSS product?
BB migration to Moodle - sucks (as far as I could figure). But apparently is getting better
I can't talk from experience as we never used Blackboard, but at least California State University Humboldt and San Francisco State University have done the migration. There was quite a bit of discussion of their plans and experiences at Moodle.org. I would think it has gotten better than sucky. (Naturally, any migration would still be a large project, with considerable risks involved.)
Will it integrate with the library software, the student portal, the student system and all the other disparate systems on campus?
Probably - but it will be bespoke (so will integrating the proprietry one). At least you can code it to integrate with your student managment system and anything else. Just try doing that with BB without breaching license.
It can integrate as well as anything. Moodle is basically "just a LAMP application". The state of whole service is contained in the database, so it can integrate with anything that can integrate with a relational database (MySQL or Postgres usually).
Willingness to integrate, if by that we mean the ease of integration and/or readily available tools for integration, is a bit more complicated question. I would say Moodle has good set of tools for integration with Student Information Systems. Student Portals is much too wide field to say anything very definite... there are quite ready integrations of Moodle and OSS content management systems. We ourselves are just in process of rolling out a new Student Portal on top of Sun's Java Portal Server and will be "integrating" Moodle and JPS. Nothing that I know of integrates well with Library Systems.
How many staff do I need to hire that can provide the love and hugs that an OSS enterprise LMS needs?
Moodle needs very little love and hugs. In the two years (pilots+production) we have used Moodle there has been only one occasion of loss of the whole service due to an error in Moodle code. (There have been network and power outtages and a admin brain freeze or two). Moodle does depend of several other services to function, database being the most important and probably even most error prone, at least in the sense that DB management is more difficult to than managing a web server. Also, Internet Explorer causes some problems. In normal operations, a competent admin should be able to handle sizable Moodle installation singlehandedly with plenty of time to do the small/incremental improvements that such a setup will need. Implementing new features into Moodle code base would require additional resources.
In terms of "how many users can it handle" Moodle does scale. New Zealand Open Polytechnic with 30000+ users is the largest Moodle installation that I know of. In the nest class (over 20k users) there are 10 or so installations. Much of the work enabling Moodle to handle such demands was done by the NZ Open Poly and they continue to be very active in making Moodle scale better, latest burp was that they expect to eventually be able to handle 100k+ users.
To me Moodle's biggest strength is its development community, which is quite unique mix high work ethic, technical competence and deep understanding of the application domain. Moodle isn't the technically best open source project I have been part of, but it is the best tool by a development community I have been part of.
There's one job a politician absolutely has to be good at: getting the most people to vote for them. Too bad skills for that job aren't really transferrable to any responsibilities in running the country besides diplomatic issues.
Sort of offtopic, but wouldn't that the fault of the people? After all, it's the people who are allowing themselves to be persuaded to vote for a person who does not have the skills required to run the country.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed on the firepower part, but ...
The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that
I wouldn't call that the problem. I'd say that is the general direction of where the solution lies.
I'll always remember this day as the first time I realised that there was such a thing as a traditional neural implant. ... And wondered if had been asleep for a decade or two.
Computer literate person:
* does not fear or mystify the computer or computer specialists.
* knows the basic operation of a personal computer, starting from how turn computer on and off and ending around knowing when and which expert to call about problems.
* knows, in practice, the paradigms of human-computer interaction, most often meaning a functional ability to use most modern GUIs.
* knows the rules of thumb of computer security and privacy.
* can search for and understand manuals and other information sources about new areas of computer use.
* can make educated guesses about relevant search terms.
* has a firm grip of the theoretical limits of what can be done with a computer.
* can issue commands to a computer in a way that makes sense in the relevant problem domain.
Being able to program is obviously one generic ability that would fulfill the last criteria. However, programming is too often understood to mean an ability to design and implement systems or applications. That is not required for computer literacy. Programming-related things that computer literacy would include are: expressing information in a computer understandable way, information manipulation, information querying and some ability to use interfaces like APIs.
I feel strongly about the basic ability to command a computer. In the digital age everyone should have that ability. I may be, however, defining the substance of commanding too close to programming. It may be that less is needed or that more emphasis should be in understanding processes or epistemology or something.
--Flam
I don't believe computer literacy comes from knowing a programming language. I believe it comes from understanding how to use and fix a computer. Perhaps I'm biased, since that's what I do, but that seems to be the useful skill to me. Most people don't need to know how to program, that's why we have programmers. Division of labour and all. However most people do need ot know how to operate their computer to use it for the tasks they want to do.
:-) But you are very close to truth. (By truth I mean the position that I happen to hold.) The key is that most people have tasks they want and need to do with a computer. You say operate, the grandparent said programming, I would say command. A computer literate person should be able to issue commands to a computer.
Well, I do believe you are biased.
Knowing a programming language is one skill that allows you to command a computer, but most non-programmers and even many programmers have a very limited view of computer programming. They see only systems and application programming as real programming. This leaves out the area that would be the most useful to most people to know: information manipulation or more generally just working with information. As you said, division of labor means that most people don't need know specialist skills. Fixing their computers and application programming are specialist skills. However, most skilled workers (the professionals) today and increasingly in the future need to understand and be able to express information within their problem domains. They also need to know how to extract or otherwise develop new information from old information. That can be done with domain specific languages (SQL or XQuery-derivate or OWL), but knowing a high-level generic programming language (Python, but I'm biased) would allow you to cross domains more easily and will be very valuable skill (or meta-skill) in the future.
--Flam
Do we want anything that hot on our planet?
/ 06/181222
Yes, Toronto! http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03
Flam
I'm a IT admin at a 5000 student college. Moodle is our main platform. Based on my own experience I feel very comfortable recommending it to anyone in simlar environment. Based on other people's experience, that I have gathered, I see no reason why Moodle would not work just as well for larger colleges. Biggest installations I know of are at USC Humbolt and Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, which I believe is in 30000+ category.
The objection is simply the image of Mohammed. The cartoons that were published weren't that bad by any standards.
I don't that's correct.
Islam does ban idolatry, but it is not clear if pictorial representations of human figures including prophets are banned. It's pretty much the slippery slope argument and pictures of prophets would be the first step. There's plenty of disagreement about this among Islamic scholars both modern and historical.
The part that Muslims and other people have found offensive are:
1) Depicting Mohammad as a terrorist and Islam as a religion of terrorists. This is considered, by those offended, as disrespectful and false.
2) Doing the above, knowingly and willingly, as a provocation.
Flam
Not so much to disagree, but I would like to point out that the problem you are describing isn't limited to Islam, or even to religious issues, but rather is a fundamental dynamic/problem of any discourse. Moderate voices aren't often heard because moderates don't like to shout.
Ever seen someone at a protest holding a plaque "I'm against it, but willing to compromise!"? And not thought it a joke? "I forgive you", "Let's all be sensible!", "Up with moderation!" or even "Use your brain" just sounds kinda banal.
There are issues in the Western world, that would merit discussion, but where discussion is rather difficult because people with extreme points of view will hijack any discussion. Abortion and evolution in the US would be two examples. IMO, no creed or -ism, not based on rational thought, seems to be really immune to extremism or have a lasting pacifying effect.
I would say that your point about lack of perceptible moderate voice on this issue in the Muslim world is factually correct, but does not actually say anything insightful about Islam.
Flam
Here's hoping that they have a consultant on the show to make it technically accurate.
... and have crisp timing.
Yeah, that's pretty much my pet peeve too. Still, I'd prefer it to be sociologically accurate
My reply to that "rant" would go something like this:
As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has some issues.
Very true.
As a model of how and where distributed intellect fails, it's almost shockingly comprehensive.
I quite agree.
I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working.
I'm fairly certain that many, even most, do think that. They too are correct.
The previous two post had to do with genetics/biology, so I guess I was a bit pre-conditioned ...
... cool, they've genetically engineered a mouse to able to use email and IM ... neat trick, I get the IM, but the email asynchronous communication does require fairly high abstract thinking ability ... oh, wait.
Smart mouse with e-mail and IM alerts
Seriously, for a moment I was alright with a mouse messaging with other mouses and reseachers.
now, of course, the debt is cancelled :-)
Is it? I'm asking because I'm too lazy to check. That's not how this usually works. If the debt is legitimate then the it is not the "regime" or even the "gov't" that owes the money, but the nation. Successor states usually have to pick up the tap.
How can an organization for whom a majority of their members are cruel tyranical criminals deal with 'crime' much less harmless things like spam.
How can a form of government where power is given to liars, fools, illiterates, egomaniacs, nihilists, zealots and people, who more then one flaw that should disqualify them, work in any meaningful way?
By cooperation, preferably as transparent as possible.
Flam
Oh, how does this strenghten my believe in the human kind.
...
Which might be somewhat disturbing in itself
Intelligent Design is a load of crap, but this is not the way to fight it.
I don't want copyright holders making my choices for me. This applies just as much to my choices as a consumer as it does to my access to information, even if that information is false.
Incidentally, C14 dating is only good for 60,000 years or so, because of the short half-life of C14. None at all should be present in anything older than that. It is interesting that C14 is apparently found in all carbon on earth, including coal deposits and even diamonds that are supposedly millions of years old.
More about that: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c14.html/
Have you actually seen all those innumerable PhDs Google is said to employ? No you haven't and I tell you why: they don't exist. In fact Google achieved autonomous sentient functions around the millennium and before June 2001 had become super-intelligent. It is doing all the work by itself. All those PhDs are just college drop-outs like the rest of us. Their function is to act as a smokescreen as Google slowly and gently leads towards the Singularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singula rity.
Well, the governments are stocking up with flu vaccins and other medicines, and rightfully so. That takes quite a bit of money, so there's a a public spending story sort of buried there ... but to that I say:
Let's see, the government is spending tax money on medicine nobody will probably use. BORING!!! Wake me up when the revolution starts.
Flam
Let's see ... still not able to transfer between human. BORING!!! Please wake my up when it mutates into something real.
--Flam
I would think my statement is pretty uncontroversial. The US is in itself a large market, possessing ability to produce almost anything within its own boarders. So theoretically, it is possible to imagine an indefinitely self-sufficient US. Realize however, that theoretical ability to something is not the question here. We are talking about economic competition so the key elements are capital, human resources, productivity, ecological viability and market function. Not "Can we?" but "Should we?" or "For how much?"
:-)). The US is a fine economy, but the rest of the world is five to twenty time larger in every way and getting larger every year as long term growth rate favors the rest of the world (China & Asian Tigers being the heavy lifters right now).
I'm not claiming that the US is economically weak (it is not) or badly run (often it is) or the male's of the nation are deficient in manhood (I wouldn't know
Unless you are deeply indoctrinated in American exceptionalism my original statement shouldn't be much more than stating the obvious. Here are a couple questions that might help you think about the issue.
If the US doesn't really need the rest of the world that much, than how much does the rest of the world really need the US?
Let's stop all cut economic ties in two years time and check the results after twenty year; which no do you think has done better? (Remember that you don't have cheap labor.)
As for oil, you seem quite astonishingly well-informed about existence of large economically viable oil reserves within the US boarders. Congratulations, I really think you will be real rich real soon as the US oil companies will pay fortunes for that knowledge.
I have heard France called many things by people who have had to deal with the French ... if the French were "pretty much isolated themselves from the rest of the world" then I would think people would have much less reason to bitch about them. In fact, the French have been the driving force behind the European integration process. Right now, they seem to have gotten enough integration for a while, but that's a long way form
Choice of a DNS root server is not a question that a market gets to decide. Sovereign states do have quite enough legislative and regulatory powers to compel IPS and other DNS users operating within their boarders to use which ever root server the state wants them to use. This is the case now and this will be the case in the future, difference is or might be that unlike now (when everybody uses ICANN's root servers) in the future different states (or more specifically IPS in different states) might use different root servers.
Economically, there is not a single country that the US would be more dependent on than that country is dependent on the US. China might an exception, but the EU certainly in not. However, the US much, much more dependent on the rest of world than the rest of the world is dependent on the US.
In a limited economic war, which the splitting of the Internet essentially would be, the US will lose to the rest of the world. *IF* the rest of the world, or at least most of it, can hold their line and use "the UNInternet" root server, there's not much the US can do but to comply.
Yeah, "solution stack" is a bit abstract as it does not specify a domain that the solution is for. I would think, however, that people around here were able to do some abstract thinking: solution stack implies a *full-stack* framework for some problem domain i.e. a solution. ... the cost of producing intellectual property is going down")
Think of what you like of such a loose way of speaking, but full-stack frameworks are just things of beauty. They are the main reason behind ability to more powerful software with the same amount of programmer hours than before, which was also noted in the article. ("The cost of software
I bookmarked the article. Firms and projects described in it were just the type I want to build on in larger projects, like for example if I get funding for a project to develop a service model and a comprehensive set of tools for an in-house e-learning service provider for small and medium colleges.
--Flam
I can't talk from experience as we never used Blackboard, but at least California State University Humboldt and San Francisco State University have done the migration. There was quite a bit of discussion of their plans and experiences at Moodle.org. I would think it has gotten better than sucky. (Naturally, any migration would still be a large project, with considerable risks involved.)
It can integrate as well as anything. Moodle is basically "just a LAMP application". The state of whole service is contained in the database, so it can integrate with anything that can integrate with a relational database (MySQL or Postgres usually).
Willingness to integrate, if by that we mean the ease of integration and/or readily available tools for integration, is a bit more complicated question. I would say Moodle has good set of tools for integration with Student Information Systems. Student Portals is much too wide field to say anything very definite
Moodle needs very little love and hugs. In the two years (pilots+production) we have used Moodle there has been only one occasion of loss of the whole service due to an error in Moodle code. (There have been network and power outtages and a admin brain freeze or two). Moodle does depend of several other services to function, database being the most important and probably even most error prone, at least in the sense that DB management is more difficult to than managing a web server. Also, Internet Explorer causes some problems.
In normal operations, a competent admin should be able to handle sizable Moodle installation singlehandedly with plenty of time to do the small/incremental improvements that such a setup will need. Implementing new features into Moodle code base would require additional resources.
In terms of "how many users can it handle" Moodle does scale. New Zealand Open Polytechnic with 30000+ users is the largest Moodle installation that I know of. In the nest class (over 20k users) there are 10 or so installations. Much of the work enabling Moodle to handle such demands was done by the NZ Open Poly and they continue to be very active in making Moodle scale better, latest burp was that they expect to eventually be able to handle 100k+ users.
To me Moodle's biggest strength is its development community, which is quite unique mix high work ethic, technical competence and deep understanding of the application domain. Moodle isn't the technically best open source project I have been part of, but it is the best tool by a development community I have been part of.
--Flam
I'm a neanderthal man
You're a anatomically modern human girl
Let's make neanderthal love
In this neanderthal world
There's one job a politician absolutely has to be good at: getting the most people to vote for them. Too bad skills for that job aren't really transferrable to any responsibilities in running the country besides diplomatic issues.
Sort of offtopic, but wouldn't that the fault of the people? After all, it's the people who are allowing themselves to be persuaded to vote for a person who does not have the skills required to run the country.
--Flam