Agile software development

In this book, we will follow an Agile software development methodology. There is plenty of information available on the internet on Agile and the principles themselves are fairly straightforward to follow. The only aspect of Agile that you really need to be aware of is that client requirements will be described in terms of user stories, which are very different to the typical use cases you may be familiar with. At the requirements stage, we can treat Moodle plugins like little black boxes.

Essentially, the difference between use cases and user stories is this:

• A use case explains what a black box is meant to do
• A user story explains what a black box is meant to achieve

You will be encountering far more user stories as you read this book as our focus is on what can be achieved with new Moodle plugins rather than what they do and, of course, with what goes on inside the little black box--the software development.