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Message Board > Boolean Soup Development > Boolean Soup development

January 8, 2008, 01:27
Rincewind
programmer
1554 posts

Time's up, time to solve some things.

The last 2 years there hardly has been any Boolean Soup development. Almost all work has been done before January 2006. It is January 2008 now. Multiple skilled people have offered their help during this time, but all have been shoved aside by Ferret and Frimkron, for reasons like:

Quote:
"We just decided it would cause less headaches if we stuck to 2 coders", "I don't think Fi's happy with the internal structure of it at the moment", " I'm waiting for Fiona to add to this discussion because I also want to know what's going on with the development", "Fiona wants to focus on another php project", "Fi says she'll make whatever minor changes he wants because it'll probably be quicker", " We'll talk about it together when we can", "Whatever. To be honest I totally can't be doing with BS at the moment", "The way the code stands now, I find it hard to work with", "I wouldn't want to give Peter any of the code because of this", "It would complicate things to a ridiculous amount if more than two people are working on it, it's bad enough as it is", "Really I don't think I could supervise anything right now", "I appreciate everyone's input on this, but I don't nominate people to do your programming for you, do I?", "it's on hold pending further discussion amongst the developers (current or otherwise)", " It's at least 75% Fiona's code and she wants to finish what she started", "The last I heard about that particular problem was that Ferret was going to add the changes this time".


Now, if you don't have time, then you don't have time. I understand that. Boolean Soup is after all a hobby project. However, what I do not understand, is that Fiona and seemingly also Frimkron don't want to open up development to anyone who wants to help, can help and has time to help. If you don't ever have the time and don't let others in, then who is going to do it? Can't you see what is happening to the community?

I know that at least Frimkron cares about Boolean Soup, but on the other hand nothing has been opened up, even though it was said there would be a public CVS server (November 2006). I also noticed a strong decrease in both developers' posting frequency on Boolean Soup. This to me seems to give off a clear sign and is obviously reflected in member activity.

So what I would suggest, with the best intentions, is to open up Boolean Soup as soon as possible to anyone who wants to help, can help and has time to help. There is plenty of work to do (articles module, forum search, bugs), and a lot of small things can be fixed easily. It should be very accessable for anyone to start helping out, not a 'still private but seemingly open' situation.

To aid this put up that public CVS/SVN/alternative server, open a public Boolean Soup development forum, and put up a system to track what needs to be done, and maybe a (public) bug tracker.
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Personal website: http://www.loijson.com
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January 8, 2008, 01:42
Woody
HEAD BLACK MAN
722 posts

Fiona this is getting retarded. Let us at the damn code if you're not going to do anything with it.
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boredome is the bitter fruit of too much routine
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January 8, 2008, 01:45
Sandman
F3n!x0r
1194 posts

I'll have to agree. I'd like to see Booleansoup grow and to achieve this, some work needs to be done; there are still people willing to develop it further, so it's all possible...
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BennuWiki
Yes, my avatar has grey borders in IE (so get a decent browser)
ROOFLEZ ROOFLEZ
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January 8, 2008, 01:50
(. )( .)
top pussy
447 posts

I bet the source code is full of secret LVOE messages.

[Edited on January 8, 2008 by (. )( .)]
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gay
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January 8, 2008, 18:17
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

Let's just hope it's actually using a Templating engine. I don't have that much free time and the kind of work that needs to be done for Booleansoup is actually my daily job. Even so I always wanted to try to develop a website with a team.

I'm willing to offer my help. But I'm not going to be the only one that is going to do all the stuff.

What I have to offer is:

* Superb Perl knowledge (yay :P, it's my #1 choice)
* More than enough PHP knowledge. Although imo PHP sucks, I still have to use it for my work.
* MySQL and SQLite. But I guess any SQL driven database is fine

Considering that Booleansoup has been around for some time I guess it wouldn't be too bad to rewrite the site. Of course, keeping the database intact. But that's just my opinion.
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 8, 2008, 22:45
Dennis
どこかにいる
2098 posts

I don't have the time either, but I agree with Rincewind. I must say this place is pretty boring ever since I post less than usual.
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Kwakkel
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January 8, 2008, 23:15
Fiona
games are terrible
-9616558 posts

Come on guys I said to you ages ago that it's been out of my hands for months.

I started it, but decided that I had other obligations to myself. Frimkron was waiting on me at the time and we mutually decided that I would step back from it and he would carry on on his own.

Now there was a while when he wasn't doing anything sure, but that time is gone.

Frimkron is writing it, I mean really is. He completely stresses over it every single night, you have no idea how much work and thought he puts into it. But he's just one person, and he doesn't code as fast (see: messy) as I do.

I know how long it takes too, I've been writing this thing constantly for the past two years and have only just got out of the admin area. (The features list hasn't been updated for a while and I haven't used Sourceforge for a long time before you start poking around)
That's a huge undertaking, and so is this.

Boolean Soup was originally thrown together by myself very quickly in the space of a few weeks, hack upon hack to the point where I could not work on it.

I am not just sticking up for him, I know because I see him actually writing it. It's not just a simple rewrite, the entire infrastructure has been redesigned from the ground up to be faster, easily extensible and just plain nicer. To be honest I am personally openly embarrassed by the Boolean Soup you see in front of you.

If you want to help the last thing you want to do is to stamp and demand, actually ask what there is you can do. I remember Rincewind saying he would create a new design with the HTML for the new version of the website - this never happened.


There is actually an SVN repository that we have both our own personal projects on, including BS2 we're actually paying for it infact.

I predict that he would like to get it to a certain point where you can start to write sections for it, although I don't know, it might be that far already. I've been a bit hands off with the development, but since he writes it on a PC that's right next to mine I know that he's got the majority of the underlying structure and all of the user handling done. (Register, login, lost password etc etc) not to mention the templating system and everything else that comes with.


I'd like to say that I don't like the tone of this thread one bit, that wont help anyone. But whatever Frim decides to do at this stage is up to him and I'll support him with it.

[Edited on January 8, 2008 by Fiona]
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laffo
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January 9, 2008, 03:02
Rincewind
programmer
1554 posts

Quoting Fiona:
I started it, but decided that I had other obligations to myself. Frimkron was waiting on me at the time and we mutually decided that I would step back from it and he would carry on on his own.

Now there was a while when he wasn't doing anything sure, but that time is gone.
Don't get me wrong - this isn't about you two being caught up with other things and not having had the time to work on Boolean Soup - it's understandable and happens to the best of us, but it is about the fact that you and Frimkron have dismissed help offered in the past, and to this day have not been willing to open up development to everyone who wants to help, has the skill to help and has time to help.


Quote:
Frimkron is writing it, I mean really is. He completely stresses over it every single night, you have no idea how much work and thought he puts into it. But he's just one person, and he doesn't code as fast (see: messy) as I do.
Exactly, as you say it, he's only one person. To me this seems exactly the problem. It's all but natural to stress your ass off if you're a single guy being caught up with other things while you feel you should be working on a huge project, lagging years behind and having a whole community waiting for you. But I don't see why not to take full advantage of the huge strength of a community full of coders, of which multiple have offered help over the years (and nothing happened).


Quote:
There is actually an SVN repository that we have both our own personal projects on, including BS2 we're actually paying for it infact.
That is your private house SVN and not an online public SVN, for everyone to access. At this point all I can hope for is that Boolean Soup development is totally opened up to Boolean Soup members, making it a collaborative project, and that there will be an emphasis on the need to communicate with eachother, for example on a new development forum.

Quote:
I predict that he would like to get it to a certain point where you can start to write sections for it, although I don't know, it might be that far already. I've been a bit hands off with the development, but since he writes it on a PC that's right next to mine I know that he's got the majority of the underlying structure and all of the user handling done. (Register, login, lost password etc etc) not to mention the templating system and everything else that comes with.
That sounds good and I appreciate all the effort, but this also shows the total lack of communication and collaboration with the community.


And last, and also least:

Quote:
I remember Rincewind saying he would create a new design with the HTML for the new version of the website - this never happened.

This was discussed in a conversation with Frimkron (which you started an argument about), and retracted in the same conversation due to me being too busy with another project. In fact, this other project still needs finishing, and since this month I've even taken half a year off university to finish it. What I am asking here is not to be let in on coding myself right now, but to transparantly open up development and share it with all skilled Boolean Soup members that want to help.
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Personal website: http://www.loijson.com
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January 9, 2008, 22:45
Sandman
F3n!x0r
1194 posts

Okay so, excellent. Now there can be a team and shit can get rolling.
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BennuWiki
Yes, my avatar has grey borders in IE (so get a decent browser)
ROOFLEZ ROOFLEZ
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January 9, 2008, 22:48
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

Is all of Booleansoup custom made? Forum also?
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 10, 2008, 07:53
Fiona
games are terrible
-9616558 posts

Not a single line was taken from anywhere else as far as I know... (Well I think part of the BBCode parser, specifically the code tags, was taken from PunBB. I have since written a much more superior BBCode parser which BS2 is fine to use.)
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laffo
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January 10, 2008, 18:46
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

Well, sorry if I'm hurting someones feelings, but programming a forum from scratch? WHY? There are more than enough, big and small, forums that can be used. It's just a waste of time.

[Edited on January 10, 2008 by Htbaa]
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 13, 2008, 14:41
Sandman
F3n!x0r
1194 posts

So perhaps it's time Frimkron stepped forward and gave his two cents.
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BennuWiki
Yes, my avatar has grey borders in IE (so get a decent browser)
ROOFLEZ ROOFLEZ
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January 13, 2008, 16:00
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

You think so? :-)
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 14, 2008, 22:41
Dennis
どこかにいる
2098 posts

I don't believe anything that is being said here. I don't think anyone still gives a rat's ass about this site except Rincewind and some others (the ones who post here). People who don't show themselves don't care about it.
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Kwakkel
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January 15, 2008, 02:03
Frimkron
Frustrated Megalomaniac
703 posts

*steps into the light, on cue*

Hi, I care about it.

Ok, first of all, I'm sorry but I didn't actually know this thread existed until tonight. These days I tend to just poke my head in here every few weeks to catch up. But I'm here to have the discussion now.

Fi might be exaggerating a little, but Boolean Soup really has been at the front of my mind for all this time and I am working on it with what time I have. Its just been extremely slow progress. And I think I've just let the time slip by without realising how long its been. When we hit 2008 it dawned on me that the last time the thing was even talked about like this was 12 months ago!

At this point I just have to hold my hands up and say; this isn't working. My current approach is simply not going to work. It is taking a ridiculous amount of time to get anywhere. And I'm sorry its taken me this long to admit this to myself. Rincewind, thank you for the wake-up call. I think it was sorely needed.

I think a number of things have gone wrong here. There are a number of reasons why things have slowed to a crawl like this.

First of all, in May 2006 I started full-time work. This was after 3 years of being a lazy student with plenty of "reading time" to write code in.

So at this point, things were starting to slow down. And there was a period where no code was being written by Fi and I. When we went back to the code again, we realised that it was a bit of a mess. It was difficult to keep track of code versions and we were often overwriting each others' work and re-introducing old bugs that had already been fixed (Neither of us knew what version control was). And to be honest, I was finding it hard to persuade Fi to help with the code at all because of this. She wouldn't/couldn't work on the code because of how messy it had become, and in addition she wanted to work on FSBoard.

Discussion on this concluded with "Why dont we start again and make it better this time". We agreed to start again from scratch, getting right all the things we'd got wrong in the first place. At the time, Rincewind pointed out how much of a bad idea this could be, and refered us to lots of articles about why you shouldn't bin everything and start again from scratch. But, we were naive.

I set up a remote Subversion repository with the help of a friend so that we could work on the code without getting versions mixed up, and the intention was to get the core code written and let anyone else who wanted to help in, to work on the various modules for the site. We didn't want too many cooks spoiling the broth while all we were basically doing was rewriting the existing code in a tidier way.

So Fi started putting together a new framework by recycling some of the best parts of the FSBoard code. And things were going smoothly for a while but started to slow. I was impatient to dive in, and wanted to get a fancy xsl templating system going so that's what I started working on. But it got complicated quickly, Fi didn't think it was at all necessary and we argued about it quite a bit. But I pushed for this thing to be included, claiming it would be worth it in the end and carried on hacking away at it.

Time went on, and Fi had lost interest in BS somewhat as she was waiting for me to do this xsl thing. We came to the agreement that she would stop working on it while I got the basic framework put together and would carry on with it at a later stage. So continued working on the code alone. So what had happenned was I was now working on a project which was several times more complicated that the original version, with a fraction of the time that I used to have available to work on it. I guess it was inevitable that time would just go on and on with it.

Things haven't been at a standstill, they've just been going at a very slow rate. And we haven't abandoned everybody, we just hadn't got to the stage that we'd planned where others could help. But I admit now that we've been pretty stupid about it. A lot of time has been wasted and a fresh look at things is now long overdue.

This is kind of the end of part one of what I have to say. I wanted to explain where things are and what has been happenning with the code. This is to update everyone and to appologise, admit that I'm wrong, take a step back and do a post mortem on the situation - in the hope that we can decide where to go next. Once I've slept on it and gathered my thoughts I'll post my opinion on what the plan of action should be.

Thanks for reading.
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January 15, 2008, 09:35
Rincewind
programmer
1554 posts

Hello there. I'm glad you've done some backtracking and determined where it went wrong. I'm interested in seeing your opinion on what direction to take next.
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Personal website: http://www.loijson.com
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January 15, 2008, 09:53
Fiona
games are terrible
-9616558 posts

Quoting Frimkron:
It was difficult to keep track of code versions and we were often overwriting each others' work and re-introducing old bugs that had already been fixed (Neither of us knew what version control was).
That's a lie by the way, I had been using CVS on my own for quite a while.

Quote:
Discussion on this concluded with "Why dont we start again and make it better this time".
We agreed to start again from scratch, getting right all the things we'd got wrong in the first place.

I think it was more along the lines of me going "I can't use this code base, fuck it, I'll start afresh."

It's a habit of mine, I don't think it's necessarily a bad habit, but it's a habit nonetheless. I haven't finished a lot of things because of restarts but other times I've made them a thousand times better and much closer to the original "vision" (FSBoard for instance has had a restart in the past, I don't regret it one bit.)

But at the end of the day I can't work with others. That's the whole idea of the modules in the first place, let people work on their own little bits and leave mine alone. Frim did the galleries just fine, and while I disliked the code, it worked and I was happy that it wasn't anywhere near my stuff.

I wanted to do the same thing, but having a much cleaner base to plug things into, but Frim kind of put more than a few feet in and all that XSLT stuff which sparked more than a few arguments was the start of me going "You know what, I just can't work with someone who has such an opposite view on how to write web apps than me."

In the end, it has turned out that it was a bad idea. The simpler (my) approach would have been a lot better.

So blame him for over engineering, or blame me for being so stubborn. It doesn't matter really. We both still care about it and want it to move forward. (So fuck you dennis you asshole)

I'm still happy to help with the coding if you can put up with me.
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laffo
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January 15, 2008, 19:38
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

Well, one of the biggest mistakes is to write your own framework. If a decent framework is being used it's much easier and faster to add and maintain stuff.

Funny, I wonder. Fiona, you dislike working together with people, yet your forum is on sourceforge?
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 15, 2008, 19:43
Fiona
games are terrible
-9616558 posts

Quoting Fiona:
(The features list hasn't been updated for a while and I haven't used Sourceforge for a long time before you start poking around)


Thanks for reading posts! :what:
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laffo
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January 15, 2008, 19:45
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

You're welcome! :-)
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 16, 2008, 00:42
Frimkron
Frustrated Megalomaniac
703 posts

Ok I'd like to apologise again - particularly to you, Rincewind and Woody for wasting time while you're both putting money into this thing. I'm glad this thread has come along to shake things up because I really want to see this site working as something bigger and better but it wasn't going to happen the way I was going about it. Chipping away at such a mountain of a task, not wanting to post about it because progress was so slow, felt very reminisant of the Great Man and the fabled Div DX.

How far along is version 2? Not very far at all, I'm afraid. In terms of complete modules finished I'd barely got the login and registration pages finished. I've spoken to the guy hosting the subversion repository and he'll set me up logins for whoever wants them. But the question is, what to do next.


In my opinion these are the options:

1) We restart the code once more for version 3. But this time we round up as many developers as are willing to help with the thing and have the source more open from the get go. We could agree to keep the code as simple and straightforward yet as tidy as possible. The key thing here would be that we'd keep the code SIMPLE.

2) We open up the code to other developers but abandon the holy grail of version 2 and instead go back to version 1. First fixing the existing bugs and then this time actually doing what needs to be done and carefully refactoring the code to make it cleaner and easier to work with. This could be done incrementally so that the site as it is now can be updated a step at a time. I see this involving some changes to the modules system and definately changing the individual pages to use templates.

3) We continue to develop version 2, openning it up to whoever else wants to work on it. Its possible that with more people on board, everyone will be more spurred on to get the thing written. Version 2 could even be stripped down a bit to remove anything seen as unnessessary to try and reduce the workload. I think this one would be Fi's choice as the boolean soup code is very much close to her heart - its always been one of her most proud accomplishments - and she just wants to see her code kept alive.

4) We give up entirely on the idea of rolling our own code, and instead put together a site using other means - leaving time to focus on more important things like the actual site content. An obvious option here would be to use a content management system such as Drupal. This what Woody has said all along. Its tried and tested and wouldn't have the inevitable bugs and security holes that writing our own code produces. Of course this would be at the cost of flexibility somewhat.

5) Or we could call the whole thing off, and close the site. This would obviously be a terrible travesty, but I guess I should include it as an option here anyway.


So what are everyone's thoughts? And who would be willing to help write the code, if that's what we want to do?
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January 16, 2008, 19:55
Rincewind
programmer
1554 posts

My choice would be option 2, an as a second choice option 4.

Option 2 - to continue with the current site and start fixing bugs, and then refactoring and extending the site carefully. We shouldn't forget this site has worked well for over 3 years, albeit slightly bugged, but it works fine nontheless. In addition to that it's all custom made and well integrated, we know how it works and what the problems are, and plenty people have contributed to it already (be it with code, skins, or submitted games) or have been willing to contribute. This is also going to be less work than any of the other options, and looking at where we are in time currently we can use that. We can then also continue to use this site during development, without feeling we're using some kind of junk thing that we're going to dump in 2 years again.


Option 4 - While integrating existing software is also going to take less time than starting from scratch which in my opinion is a good thing, and on top of that is going to be less bugged to start with, it is still going to be a hell of a job to find components that fit our exact needs and integrate everything properly. Integrating tens of login systems might not be fun. Also, I doubt we will find components that fit our exact needs for things like the game galleries - in my eyes the current galleries are perfect for the job, and the exact same thing might not exist. And when we would have to choose for example existing forum software, surely everyone will have different opinions on what to choose. I'd prefer Invision Power Board, but I know others prefer PunBB, Simple Machines, etc. And what happens to all existing forum posts and games (including comments) content? It would all have to be ported.


Option 1 - Doesn't seem to be a very good idea because we would restart from scratch again (and for some reason throw away all code from both version 2 and 1), which will be a hell of a job again and make a lot less sense than continuing (together) with version 1 or 2. I think in the time this gets done it might be too late.

Option 3 - Same (although slightly better) as option 1 really.

I'm willing to help with anything that needs to be done when I am done with my current project (which will take another half year at least), and as long as it doesn't seem a helpless undertaking. Other than that I'll of course continue posting here, approving games/comments, and making sure that the hosting continues.

[Edited on January 16, 2008 by Rincewind]
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Personal website: http://www.loijson.com
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January 16, 2008, 20:30
Htbaa
Perl
368 posts

Option 5 is out of the question!

Option 4 isn't that bad. The only problem is that there'll probably a flame about what forum to use and then we have to export the user accounts, topics, posts and forums. Which might or might not be a big task.
We could use the login function from the forum that's going to be used. Using the same session and/or cookies in the same domain would do the trick.
Doing a decent template to match the forum with the website is probably the biggest task.
The data from the galleries could be reused. I don't know how complex all of that stuff is, but it doesn't look too challenging.
Since the rest of the site (galleries, other pages) will need to be rewritten we might as well use a decent framework. It structures the code much better, MVC would also be possible which is neat as well. And when we're using ORM there aren't going to be queries all over the place and we can keep the data consistent.

I suppose I prefer option 4. Might be able to combine it with option 2, where we'll fix the current bugs. In the meantime we continue developing the new version.

Option 3... No. I don't know if it still contains the XSLT stuff, but that's just useless. Besides, a lot of stuff might even need a rewrite. Also, the current code and structure isn't known by other people at the current moment. I say this is a bad option. It's better to start with something that everybody agrees on being the best codebase.

I don't give a rats ass about "seeing code kept alive". It doesn't and it doesn't show as well. Everything can always be done better, more efficient and getting better performance.

Option 2... No as well, I say option 4 and in the meanwhile fixing the current bugs. That way we can at least keep enjoying the current version which also removes the stress on finishing the new version.

Option 1 No. I'm no student anymore, I just don't have that much time. Also, keeping code SIMPLE doesn't mean it'll be good code. But that's another discussion :-).


I'll stay with option 4 and keep bug fixing the current version. Resistance is futile!
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blog.htbaa.com
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January 16, 2008, 23:19
Fiona
games are terrible
-9616558 posts

I guess I'm happy with continuing with the current code base.
But you have to understand that BS was the second website I wrote with PHP. (Yes. 2nd.)
And now after all this time writing PHP is now my day job, I know all the ins and outs, every little oddity and potential security hole and how to get around them. Because of this I know how many there are, and how all of them are in BS1 in some form or other.

The code is terrible! And that's an understatement, to the point where I decided I couldn't look at it. It embaresses me, and I just hope you all can put up with it.

Quoting Rincewind:
I'd prefer Invision Power Board, but I know others prefer PunBB, Simple Machines, etc. And what happens to all existing forum posts and games (including comments) content? It would all have to be ported.


You're insane, BS is not a forum, although it's a central part of the community it needs a CMS like Drupal. (I can attest that it's a lot better than Joomla and PHPNuke and the like, I had to do a lot of research into them for work. Drupal is very much a well designed "shell" though and relies on modules completely for anything other than basic articles and static pages.)

And as for forum software, I know the code of the three you mentioned intimately (especially Invision and PunBB) and I can attest to the fact that Invision is downright the worst of the bunch (next to VB, which is gastly). 2nd would be PunBB, it's nice code and is fast, but the best forum software I've been through is actually SMF.

And yes it would have to be ported, no matter what system that's used, this is not a trivial task.

[Edited on January 16, 2008 by Fiona]
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laffo
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