The best way to get involved is to get involved

Smartys · 2008-12-22 16:15:50

Seems like a contradiction, right? It's true though: the best way to get started with an open source project is to become involved in the project, contributing in various ways. People who code can submit patches for bugs/feature requests (or develop extensions), others can provide documentation, support, internationalization, feedback on ideas, etc. That's exactly how I got started with PunBB: I played around with the software, started doing support, and eventually went on to provide various patches for security vulnerabilities (and then I became a developer).

Obviously, a lot of people are upset with the progress (or lack thereof) of FluxBB. However, as the developers keep saying, complaints at this point serve only to discourage them from continuing to code. So, instead, I would be interested in talking with people who are willing to "step up to the plate" (so to speak) and contribute to developing the next generation of the forum software they love so much. I've already been in contact with a few people and what I've heard is very promising. However, better quality software can't be developed without more contributors.

So, if you're interested, let me know! If you have the desire to contribute, you have the ability to contribute; drop me an email or post here and let me know what your skills are and what you are interested in doing. Even if you can't code or write markup, there are plenty of things for you to do. If you're an active PunBB/FluxBB member, be sure to say so!

For coders/web designers, samples of work would be much appreciated. Resumes are nice, but they don't really give the same sense of what people are actually capable of.

Rich Pedley · 2008-12-22 16:47:18

Well said.

I'm developing extensions, and any that are released will be upgraded to work once we are out of the development stage.

I'm also, with my other 'alf, down to assess the final version for accessibility - pointless doing it before then. (spoke to Paul some time ago about this so I assume he hasn't forgotten).

As to other things...

eShop is a fairly well recieved plugin for wordpress.
Quirm.net is where a lot of my development codes go.

I'm not a brilliant php coder, but I do try and write accessible html along side of it which helps.

Meow · 2008-12-22 18:06:17

Smartys, you should have posted this on the Announcements forum.

fmimoso · 2008-12-22 18:29:54

Are you talking about FluxBB 2?

MattF · 2008-12-22 18:46:39

Meow wrote:

Smartys, you should have posted this on the Announcements forum.

Why? It isn't an announcement.

xable · 2008-12-22 19:07:36

Get involved in what, FluxBB or another fork?

Strofanto · 2008-12-22 19:31:27

To be honest, if Paul committed the markup I would have helped with the CSS, but there's no point in writing a new markup since he stated he finished it already.

Meow · 2008-12-23 02:01:42

Because Paul hates Trac.

Mark · 2008-12-23 02:28:45

Meow wrote:

Because Paul hates Trac.

Whats the got to do with it? If he hates trac, He can always zip up his files and send them over to another dev.

Ti_Pierre · 2008-12-23 12:47:17

fmimoso wrote:

Are you talking about FluxBB 2?

I think he's talking about FluxBB 1.3.

xable wrote:

Get involved in what, FluxBB or another fork?

If you read the entire topic, Neal talk about his experience in punbb, and for the future of FluxBB.

Meow wrote:

Because Paul hates Trac.

Source ?

Personnaly I think it's a good idea, but likes Strofanto, to give help, I'm waiting for Paul commit.

P.S : I'm french, I hope you understand

Meow · 2008-12-23 13:03:32

Ti_BoSs wrote:

Source ?

http://fluxbb.org/forums/post/17820/#p17820

Paul wrote:

I don't actually do changes, I do total rewrites which is why I don't much like svn. Versioning is great once you have a fairly stable branch and just want to tinker with it but not so good otherwise. Perhaps we should have had two development branches, one stable and one experimental.

xable · 2008-12-23 13:32:48

Ti_BoSs wrote:

If you read the entire topic, Neal talk about his experience in punbb, and for the future of FluxBB.

I did read the whole topic, several times infact thank you very much, and no, it doesn`t answer the question.

Strofanto · 2008-12-23 13:33:24

Read beyond Paul's words and you'll find a Webmaster fully understandable point of view about trac. HTML and CSS often need small changed, either aesthetic either functional, there's no point in compulsively uploading anything you made if you have to test, rework, change, fix, adjust (got me?) and so on.

Smartys · 2008-12-23 13:36:57

xable wrote:

Get involved in what, FluxBB or another fork?

Both
The proposal is for a fork of 1.2. The idea is to support 1.2 for the many people who can not or will not upgrade to 1.3 while also developing a more modern version of 1.2 (with more modern 1.3 features like UTF-8 support without major code structure/markup changes).
The intention is not to complete with FluxBB but to complement it. If this works out, a lot of the pressure will be taken off of Paul and the other developers.

ridgerunner · 2008-12-23 16:56:23

Excellent suggestion. Here's something I can bring to the table...
I recently finished reading: Mastering Regular Expressions (3rd edition) (see slashdot review here). To hone my newfound regex skills, I've been going throught the sourcecode of several opensource php projects I'm thinking of using (punBB, fluxBB, phpBB, Drupal, Textpattern). FluxBB 1.3 currently uses approximately 191 calls to the preg_xxx() PCRE library functions. I'm in the process of going through and checking the logic and efficiency of each one. My plan is to document and optimize each of them, then submit any recommended changes to the devs.

MattF · 2008-12-23 16:57:33

Smartys wrote:

The proposal is for a fork of 1.2. The idea is to support 1.2 for the many people who can not or will not upgrade to 1.3 while also developing a more modern version of 1.2 (with more modern 1.3 features like UTF-8 support without major code structure/markup changes).

That sounds like a good idea. I'll gladly put my two penneth in on that one whenever I have time and chance, if it gets off the ground.

Ledo · 2008-12-23 17:06:56

What if you would make the core code and markup independent? Not so much tied together?

Smartys · 2008-12-23 18:22:34

ridgerunner wrote:

Excellent suggestion. Here's something I can bring to the table...
I recently finished reading: Mastering Regular Expressions (3rd edition) (see slashdot review here). To hone my newfound regex skills, I've been going throught the sourcecode of several opensource php projects I'm thinking of using (punBB, fluxBB, phpBB, Drupal, Textpattern). FluxBB 1.3 currently uses approximately 191 calls to the preg_xxx() PCRE library functions. I'm in the process of going through and checking the logic and efficiency of each one. My plan is to document and optimize each of them, then submit any recommended changes to the devs.

Wow. That would be an excellent contribution.

MattF wrote:

Smartys wrote:
The proposal is for a fork of 1.2. The idea is to support 1.2 for the many people who can not or will not upgrade to 1.3 while also developing a more modern version of 1.2 (with more modern 1.3 features like UTF-8 support without major code structure/markup changes).
That sounds like a good idea. I'll gladly put my two penneth in on that one whenever I have time and chance, if it gets off the ground.

Great.

Ledo wrote:

What if you would make the core code and markup independent? Not so much tied together?

We might very well do that in the future, but the goal at this point is simply to modernize 1.2 without rewriting it. A template system would fall under the category of "complete rewrite"

liquidat0r · 2008-12-23 18:49:44

Hrm, I sure wish I had some skills to contribute.

Smartys · 2008-12-23 19:30:49

liquidat0r wrote:

Hrm, I sure wish I had some skills to contribute.

Everyone has skills they can contribute!
Can you answer people's questions about 1.2? Can you do QA (basically, testing and bug hunting)? Can you write documentation?
You don't need to code to be able to contribute.

liquidat0r · 2008-12-23 19:56:47

Well, I can do all of those things, and have been where I can. I used to help people endlessly on BF2S (a BF2 orientated forum (when Battlefield 2 was new/popular)) and have contributed a lot to the Wiki there.

I keep meaning to contribute to the FluxBB Wiki but keep finding myself short of time. Or rather, when I do have spare time I spend it doing other things.

Moderating forums is what I do - in terms of internet life - but you guys don't really need that here (yet, anyway).

xable · 2008-12-23 20:01:31

Smartys wrote:

Both

Well that`s good and bad

It`s good efforts are being organised, it`s bad their not focused on 1.3.

Any efforts are better spent supporting 1.3 imo. Paul`s markup milestone is the top of the hill, there`s only one hill and there`s plenty to do while he works on reaching the top. Once he`s there it`s all systems go. I would think the more effort put into 1.3 the more motivation he would have to speed his work along aswell.

Personally I would like to think that Paul will complete the markup in the new year as soon as he gets chance, in the mean time we can get on with anything else that`s doable while in this temporary limbo.

On the other hand if paul`s standing is along the lines of, "if the markup gets completed in 2009 then good but if it doesn`t then there`s always 2010.. no rush" handing the markup revision to someone equally capable or a fork of 1.3 might be best, all providing the markup could be completed to the same high standard of course.

I`ll of course help in any way I`m capable whatever happens with 1.2/1.3.

wow ridgerunner, that`s the stuff

Connor · 2008-12-23 20:12:32

ridgerunner wrote:

Excellent suggestion. Here's something I can bring to the table...
I recently finished reading: Mastering Regular Expressions (3rd edition) (see slashdot review here). To hone my newfound regex skills, I've been going throught the sourcecode of several opensource php projects I'm thinking of using (punBB, fluxBB, phpBB, Drupal, Textpattern). FluxBB 1.3 currently uses approximately 191 calls to the preg_xxx() PCRE library functions. I'm in the process of going through and checking the logic and efficiency of each one. My plan is to document and optimize each of them, then submit any recommended changes to the devs.

Great minds think alike http://fluxbb.org/trac/ticket/38 any thoughts you have would be much appreciated

MattF · 2008-12-23 21:36:39

xable wrote:

It`s good efforts are being organised, it`s bad their not focused on 1.3.
Any efforts are better spent supporting 1.3 imo.

The point being made, however, is that there are quite a few people, (myself included), who have absolutely no intention of running 1.3* within the foreseeable future. To those, 1.2* is far more important.

eliot · 2008-12-23 21:44:46

MattF wrote:

The point being made, however, is that there are quite a few people, (myself included), who have absolutely no intention of running 1.3* within the foreseeable future. To those, 1.2* is far more important.

+1 as the kids are saying these days.

Forums

#1 2008-12-22 16:15:50

The best way to get involved is to get involved

#2 2008-12-22 16:47:18

Re: The best way to get involved is to get involved

#3 2008-12-22 18:06:17

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#4 2008-12-22 18:29:54

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#5 2008-12-22 18:46:39

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#6 2008-12-22 19:07:36

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#7 2008-12-22 19:31:27

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