MyBB Community Forums

(2012-08-08, 12:44 PM)Frank.Barry Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:You are not our clients. We do not get paid. We have always treated our user base with respect but there are times when we can no longer go with our smooth conversation when we've explained multiple times this and that and people do NOT WANT to understand because they are "afraid of change". It's not a matter of explaining it properly.

Technically we are your clients whether your paid or not. If nobody uses your software then theres not much point in developing it.

You are not our clients. You are our user base, we develop it for you, under our rules, our free time and our will.

(2012-08-08, 12:44 PM)Frank.Barry Wrote: [ -> ]From what I can see, Pirata, you seem to have an attitude like "Im developing this software but I don't care what the users think". It seems to me like its more of a personal challenge for you to build the software. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, its just how you came across to me.

My attitude is like "I don't really care about what you think" and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way either, it's really what I feel. I do my best for MyBB and that comes first when it comes to my interests and the interests of the whole project so what you think about me doesn't really concern me.

(2012-08-08, 12:44 PM)Frank.Barry Wrote: [ -> ]I think the guys are right in a way. I know the mybb team have thought about this for years etc.... but at the end of the day no matter what you develop, no matter how awesome it is, its us that will be using it and its us that will ultimately reveal if the project is successful or not. You cant build a successful software with out feedback and listening to members concerns, and taking them into consideration.

If you don't look for feedback on this kind of stuff how are you to know what the current mybb users what and don't want ? Whether you take the feedback on board or not is another matter altogether. At least give the community a chance to submit their views on what they want.

When the feedback from the community doesn't meet our expectations for the project we have two solutions: leave the team or do what we think is best for the project.

If the team decides I am no longer fit to do what I've been doing or if the project takes a path I am against, I'll leave it the same second, don't worry about that.

Quote:2.0 is the result of over 4 years of research and development from some of the best developers I've had the chance to work with.

1.x is the result of 10 years of research and development. It's a tested and true forum software that's become one of the best on the web. 2.0 even if labelled MyBB will be coded with an alien method...essentially starting the project from scratch. Much like phpbb did with version 3. Which arguably was a flop because all plugins and themes broke.

My happy thoughts concerning 2.0 are that it's hopefully years away. I'm extremely grateful over the 1.8x development.

Quote:You are not our clients. We do not get paid. We have always treated our user base with respect but there are times when we can no longer go with our smooth conversation

I think if you can't have smooth conversation as you put it then maybe just ignore the threads. Seriously don't see why you're letting him upset you. No one on MyBB is forced to respond as far as I know. I'm a bit saddened by your statement because I don't agree we are not clients. At bare minimum we are your target audience for the software. You are attempting to build something people will want to use right? Well..who do you think will use it? Us...that's who. Admins use the software...end-users of MyBB are the millions of logged in members to various forums. When members of my site have complaints about the MyBB software I run they don't come here...they come to me and I come here. Unsure what you think we are if we aren't clients.

But anyways...I really hope you don't allow people that are worried about 2.0 MVC get you riled up. If you're so confident it's an awesome idea and that the project will benefit then just do it and the proof will be in the pudding. No amount of discussion is going to prove anything to anyone and it's the team that must do the coding. We just sit around and wait.

I still love you guys and you have my faith.

(2012-08-08, 08:45 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:2.0 is the result of over 4 years of research and development from some of the best developers I've had the chance to work with.

1.x is the result of 10 years of research and development. It's a tested and true forum software that's become one of the best on the web. 2.0 even if labelled MyBB will be coded with an alien method...essentially starting the project from scratch. Much like phpbb did with version 3. Which arguably was a flop because all plugins and themes broke.

It's alien for you because you haven't bothered to learn it. Simple as that if you ask me.

(2012-08-08, 08:45 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:You are not our clients. We do not get paid. We have always treated our user base with respect but there are times when we can no longer go with our smooth conversation

I think if you can't have smooth conversation as you put it then maybe just ignore the threads. Seriously don't see why you're letting him upset you. No one on MyBB is forced to respond as far as I know.

While that may be your way of being, it's not how I am. I'm part of the team and therefor I have my own responsibilities. This is the 2.0 development forum and I am part of the development team so it's my responsibility to answer any question put by users here.

(2012-08-08, 08:45 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]I'm a bit saddened by your statement because I don't agree we are not clients. At bare minimum we are your target audience for the software. You are attempting to build something people will want to use right? Well..who do you think will use it? Us...that's who. Admins use the software...end-users of MyBB are the millions of logged in members to various forums. When members of my site have complaints about the MyBB software I run they don't come here...they come to me and I come here. Unsure what you think we are if we aren't clients.

We do what we think is best for our target audience. I believe we have not failed you yet so I don't understand such doubts about this theme even after we've tried to prove our points.

(2012-08-08, 08:45 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]But anyways...I really hope you don't allow people that are worried about 2.0 MVC get you riled up. If you're so confident it's an awesome idea and that the project will benefit then just do it and the proof will be in the pudding. No amount of discussion is going to prove anything to anyone and it's the team that must do the coding. We just sit around and wait.

I still love you guys and you have my faith.

Exactly what we've been trying to say. All we want is that you trust us because we do what we think is best for the project and the end-user.

Quote:It's alien for you because you haven't bothered to learn it. Simple as that if you ask me.

Not entirely correct. I've downloaded 5-6 frameworks to toy with and I wasn't happy. I'm just not convinced that a framework will create a better end-product. It will help MyBB with development time.

Quote:I believe we have not failed you yet so I don't understand such doubts about this theme even after we've tried to prove our points.

For me it's a concern not a doubt. Simple because I am not convinced a framework is the way to go doesn't mean I'm convinced we shouldn't use it either. Others as you can see are also being expressive about their own concerns or doubts. I don't think that will stop imho until actual code is available to members.

I am happy with the answer thus far on the plugin side of things.

However I am a little disappointed in the attitude and wording of responses, it's quite disheartening to be told that the development team don't care about the user base and will develop to their own agenda. That seems a little backward. By the way you are incorrect in that we are not "your clients" a client does not require a financial transaction, clients are your user base and the ones that use your product or services, whether paid or free.

The product thus far is good, however attitudes expressed thus far are disheartening and damaging in my view.

I came on here with some honest and thought out feedback, and it's quite disappointing to see the thread end the way it has.

This reminds me very much of the e107 dev team when they almost killed that project.

Anyway I will leave you to it, it is as you have said in your hands, and your decisions and I will make a call at the time whether to persist or migrate elsewhere, it is a decision I don't need to make until another year or more down the track anyway.

Thanks for the responses

(2012-08-09, 12:41 AM)Dannymh Wrote: [ -> ]I am happy with the answer thus far on the plugin side of things.

However I am a little disappointed in the attitude and wording of responses, it's quite disheartening to be told that the development team don't care about the user base and will develop to their own agenda. That seems a little backward. By the way you are incorrect in that we are not "your clients" a client does not require a financial transaction, clients are your user base and the ones that use your product or services, whether paid or free.

If it was really like that, do you think I'd spend my free time doing this? I do this because I like, I care about the project and obviously about who uses it.
However, when the end-user is afraid of change or simply has not enough knowledge about the change that must be done (for multiple reasons), we can't just stand back and continue to do what has been done for nearly a decade. That will kill the project for sure AND BECAUSE WE CARE we will not do it that way so in the end we must not listen to the target audience because we are sure that is not the path to go and if we listen to some of you, we will kill the project, and that's what will be written in history: a, b, c developers let the project die, it wouldn't be the community that would kill it, it would be us, who didn't have the guts to say "no" to their target-audience.
I think that's what people do not understand and that's what saddens me the most. It's not the opinion they have about me or other developers, it's the lack of vision, which is posing a threat to the lifetime of MyBB. And that is what we're trying to fight against - but people don't seem to care much since all they think about is short-time not long-time.
No one will force you to upgrade, you can fork the project (1.x) if you wish so I don't understand much of the noise around 2.0

Do I dare respond to that?
Your "lack of vision" comment irks me the most.

I personally don't see how using a pre-built framework is vision. We've had the discussion numerous times now and it's obvious how some feel on both sides. You've not proven that a framework will benefit the project and some believe it won't. Not because frameworks are bad but because it may not fit well with MyBB.

It's like using Joomla for it's community software. Why would you install all that code and software just to use the small part of the software.

Frameworks could very well be the future but it bothers me that seemingly every year there is a better one released.

If you want vision...here. Build MyBB with MVC built specifically with forums in mind and have MyBB become a framework for everyone else. Use minimal libraries like jquery and possible a template engine. Create a new architecture from the ground up that will focus on forums.

Correct me if I'm wrong but here is what I understand are the reasons we're using a framework.

1. It will speed up development time. (community overall is patient)
2. Frameworks are the future standard. (you can still write to current/future standards from scratch)

Now here are reasons some are against it.

1. All plugins and themes will break.
2. Framework MVC architecture is more complicated to learn.
3. Code of frameworks can be wasteful
4. Creating new plugins may be more difficult and time consuming
5. A new URL structure will be required causing SEO issues (huge personal concern)
6. Using a framework will tie the project too closely to another project possibly causing issues with development time frames and security

Quote:If it was really like that, do you think I'd spend my free time doing this? I do this because I like, I care about the project

And do you think if we didn't care we'd be wasting our breathe on posting concerns? We do this because we care about the project too.

The dev team have made up their minds imho. A framework is gonna happen. That fact doesn't turn me into a sheep following blindly. It also doesn't mean I'm upset or angry with the team. I just believe the decision was done without the community input and based on the team responses it would seem that was intentional. As if you guys didn't give 2 sh-its what we thought about how MyBB was coded because as you say...we're not clients and we're not the coders.

I'm really on the fence about using framework. You might think I'm against using it but I'm not. I'm more concerned about the particular choice of Yii as well as the lack of community input in the actual decision. I can be convinced and maybe eventually I'll come around to the idea. For now I'll sit on the fence and wait to figure out which road leads to a cliff.

I asked about how MyBB would feel about forks and no response was given but I'll be honest. I had a slew of contacts from members stating they think they same thing. That imho should make the team pause. So this is a heads up...if you go Framework and alienate the base you do run the risk of having the community create a 1.8x fork. Some of us with successful sites will honestly have no choice. I can't personally deal with years of custom code work destroyed because dev team wants to stir things up.

I'll even give you a clear similar example. FluxBB which is a fork of PunBB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FluxBB

PunBB was sold and the new owners created version 1.3x with lots of code changes. Old dev team created FluxBB and ended up reverting to 1.2x base because that's what the community wanted. Now the project is a mess with 2 weird code bases.

Again I'm only hopeful the team will take years to actually release 2.0 and in the meantime we'll have 1.8x. I'm personally gonna go out of my way to report every bug I know about...and I know a lot of them I haven't yet reported.

Ugh...this is the first thing I did today. Hopefully my day gets better than this.

Just picking up on the FluxBB thing, the authors are writing FluxBB 2 right now using the Laravel framework. Just to let you know.

I've made my position on frameworks fairly clear in the past and really don't want to get sucked up into this kind of discussion. I still believe that MyBB should choose a minimal framework if choosing one at all. Choosing a mammoth framework like Yii or CodeIgniter with thousands of un-needed features seems fairly pointless in my mind. I'm not against using a framework or anything but there are obvious disadvantages.

Either way, 2.0 is still years away from now and we've got plenty of time to think about our approach and how best to do it. We've also got all the time in the world for alpha and beta testing to sort out issues such as redirections from old URLs to new ones (let's face it, the scheme is likely to change at least a little bit).

And Xenforo uses Zend and phpbb4 is likely to use Symfony 2. Trend wise Frameworks are becoming more common in larger projects. That's obvious.

I'm really against Zend. It's been shown to be one of the slowest frameworks out there so it's a no go from me just because of that fact. Symfony isn't bad but it's syntax in some ways is just so alien to those of us who learned and are used to good old procedural PHP.