I've just had the fun of merging some code in backup/backuplib.php from a development installation into our moodle head. A large part fo the code would benefit from what seems a very simple refactor. I'd do it but deadlines are looming. I've logged this as major because I think it would tidy up a large part of this key method and make it easier to read and debug. The code is in the method backup_execute. This method is generally following just a couple of patterns over and over again. Most of it looks like this if (!defined('BACKUP_SILENTLY')) { echo "<li>".get_string("blocks").'</li>'; } //Blocks information if ($status) { if (!$status = backup_course_blocks($backup_file,$preferences)) { $errorstr = "An error occurred while backing up course blocks"; backup_add_to_log(time(),$preferences->backup_course,$errorstr,'manual'); if (!defined('BACKUP_SILENTLY')) { notify($errorstr); } else { return false; } } } repeated over and over again. This could easily be abstracted to a method or two and save maybe 500 - 1000 lines of code