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| Message Board > Boolean Soup Development > Boolean Soup development |
| January 16, 2008, 23:30 | |
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Fiona
games are terrible -9616558 posts 
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Quoting Htbaa: 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. You don't, but I do. I can't quite explain it but Boolean Soup is very special and means a lot to me. I have been programming for over ten years and in that time my constant restarts and starting new things means that I have one thing live that people use to show for it. This website. Programming is the only thing I'm good at, I do it a lot, and this is all I have to display for it. To think that people would throw it all away and replace with someone elses open source CMS is absolutely heart wrenching, it upsets me and already has. It didn't really hit me till last night when you were all seriously considering it. It's like taking away someones child and giving them a doll that cries and wees and going "Hey, it doesn't matter, it does everything the other one does right?" That's not the point, when you nurture something so much and spend so much time on it it becomes something special, and when it's the only thing you've properly brought into the world, well that just makes it worse. If the decision is to refactor the current code then I hereby now promise to help if just to stop the website being replaced by some random CMS. Call me dramatic, silly, sad, unhinged, whatever. This is how I feel about it. ____________ laffo |
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| January 16, 2008, 23:32 | |
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DTM
Earthling! 821 posts 
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Looking at it from the user side of the fence the site seems quite fine as it is. Except for a few things that seem (without knowing the code) quite easy to add (like worklog comment numbers and stuff, PMs on worklog comments). Is forum search necessary? A lot of the site is in google. Do as gamedev.net do. Articles could surely just be posts in a sub forum. Indexed somehow (ha) with the links module. Just what is it that needs to be done? ARE there lots of exciting new modules planned? I think the main problem is lack of people posting! As Dennis suggested. So advertise? If fenixdocs.com gets any visiters, plaster it with links to booleansoup. Hold another compo  (and I'll help spam about it in other gamedev forums).And lack of content- it's not like people are writing articles, so why bother with a module for it... The forums aren't exactly filled with fenix/game making tutorials and no place to put them. Indeed I'd sooner see people POSTING (be it just boredome) and writing tutorials and stuff than rewriting the site. I almost forgot, the most important thing: if this is a game dev site, we need pretty pictures of the highest rated games on the main page. Hack them in, who cares how it gets done. So I vote for whatever option can achieve this goal most quickly  Games like HouseBreak, Turbulence etc should be showcased, you might attract some game-players as well as game makers. When I have time (hahaaa, never), I could do things like posting about the upload galleries on other forums and places (like irrlicht forums, indie gamer, gpwiki...). Very nicely worded of course so it doesn't seem like spam. I'm sure indie game devs would want to upload their creations in every place possible (esp. if shareware). Or are you happy to keep this place as the lost DIV-ers hideout, with only a tiny (but oh so nice and friendly) community? (which is fine...) My rambling 2 cents. Shall I go away again? ____________ :o |
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| January 16, 2008, 23:46 | |
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raverdave
Don't Give A F*CK 155 posts 
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yeh,i know what you mean,i have this 'special plant' that i have nurtured since it was nothing but a tiny seed, [Edited on January 16, 2008 by raverdave] ____________ Gimme my toetag already... |
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| January 16, 2008, 23:50 | |
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Sandman
F3n!x0r 1194 posts 
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I'd say option 2: step by step updating the current code. I have ample knowledge of PHP, so I don't know what it takes etc, but I do know that complete redo's are many times unnecessary. I also know that sometimes code just can't handle future idea's, so that's why piece of code of v1 should probably be rewritten. So option 2: create a list of what *is wanted*, see how that can be done and finally do it. If a whole section just doesn't do what it should or has many leaks or whatever: rewrite it, but not all sections need rewriting, I'd say (hope). ____________ BennuWiki Yes, my avatar has grey borders in IE (so get a decent browser) ROOFLEZ ROOFLEZ |
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| January 16, 2008, 23:55 | |
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Frimkron
Frustrated Megalomaniac 703 posts 
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Quoting Htbaa: 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 :-) The way I see it, one of the most major problems with version 2 (other than a lack of time to work on it) is the fact that I tried to make it as "good" as possible. It was over-engineered. I'm suggesting sticking to conceptually simple, unsophisticated code, but code which is clean, tidy, and hard to break. KISS: "Keep It Simple, Stupid" would be the key. Me, Fiona, Rincewind and no doubt you too htbaa are well capable of writing something with MVC layers and persistance APIs and design patterns all over the place. But for getting something finished, writing code that we could write in our sleep but writing it well would be a good idea, in my opinion. ____________ |
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| January 17, 2008, 00:00 | |
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Fiona
games are terrible -9616558 posts
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Quoting DTM: My rambling 2 cents. Shall I go away again? That was a very intesting post from a user perspective. Thank you. I've always been told that it doesn't matter to the user as long as it works well enough. I guess programmers are pretty selfish and proud of their craft enough that hacking is not usually desireable at all. Don't go away if you have more to post. Quoting raverdave: yeh,i know what you mean,i have this 'special plant' that i have nurtured since it was nothing but a tiny seed, And don't you go anywhere either (post more, bitch)
____________ laffo |
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| January 17, 2008, 00:19 | |
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Frimkron
Frustrated Megalomaniac 703 posts
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Cool - thanks for your input DTM! Quoting DTM: Is forum search necessary? A lot of the site is in google. A site-wide search feature would be nice for usability. Especially when we have more content to search through. Users want to find what they're looking for as quickly as possible. Quote: Just what is it that needs to be done? ARE there lots of exciting new modules planned? There was a to-do list as long as my arm which is years old now. We had plans for all kinds of crazy stuff. Sound and graphic libraries, articles, a wiki, project groups... Lots of stuff that would be nice to have, but which all takes time. Quote: I think the main problem is lack of people posting! As Dennis suggested. So advertise? Quote: And lack of content- it's not like people are writing articles, so why bother with a module for it... The forums aren't exactly filled with fenix/game making tutorials and no place to put them. My thinking was always that if we build it, people will come. Especially with adequate content. The more resources we have to offer, the more we will get found. Quote: we need pretty pictures of the highest rated games on the main page. Hack them in, who cares how it gets done. So I vote for whatever option can achieve this goal most quickly :) I always wanted to have all the latest of everything listed on the welcome page - latest forum post, latest game uploads, highest rated games etc etc. Quote: Shall I go away again? Only if its to make games 
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| January 17, 2008, 00:20 | |
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raverdave
Don't Give A F*CK 155 posts
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I'm Right here baby! amazingly they are showing castaway on BBC1,i ahd been after that fucker for ages! Its like gold-dust on the net,for some reason! Let me just say on the point of the BS! starting again is pretty bad,mainly coz if it does take time then users may lose interest and 'drop like flies' Even arguing this way might give them some bitter feeling! Strange how humans are...Anyhow..back to [Edited on January 17, 2008 by raverdave] ____________ Gimme my toetag already... |
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| January 17, 2008, 00:35 | |
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Fiona
games are terrible -9616558 posts
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Quoting raverdave: Anyhow..back to It sometimes feels like the same thing where castaway is involved
____________ laffo |
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| January 17, 2008, 00:40 | |
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raverdave
Don't Give A F*CK 155 posts
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i am just kidding of course!i am having one can,chilling out watching the film, in the hope that i goto sleep and not stay awake until 4-5am, though this seems inevitable! it was wishful thinking about the 'plant' as yes i probably would have a spliff or 2 just to knock me out!
____________ Gimme my toetag already... |
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| January 17, 2008, 01:50 | |
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Rincewind
programmer 1545 posts 
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I'm glad to see so many reactions - if the two cents keep flooding in we might as well be able to pay a web developer to build the thing for us. Quoting Fiona: 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.) I meant choosing a forum as part of the grand total. Drupal has an Invision Power Board module.Quoting Fiona: 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. Right, my Invision Power Board preference is from the user perspective here, as I haven't dug into it's code. My point was mainly that if the outcome would be #4 (which is not my main preference) that there would be a debate over what forum software to use, no need to actually debate about it now and here already! Quoting Fiona: And yes it would have to be ported, no matter what system that's used, this is not a trivial task. Good to hear that wouldn't be trivial. Oh and Fiona, I'm glad to hear you still care about Boolean Soup. Quoting DTM: And lack of content- it's not like people are writing articles, so why bother with a module for it... The forums aren't exactly filled with fenix/game making tutorials and no place to put them. Actually I have a bunch of tutorials from my former site that have been waiting all the time for a tutorial/articles module. People aren't writing articles because there is no proper place to display them - just putting them on some forum wouldn't give them the dignity they deserve. A nice tutorial/articles page has always gotten my vote for the next new feature to write for Boolean Soup.Quoting DTM: Just what is it that needs to be done? ARE there lots of exciting new modules planned? Quoting Sandman: So option 2: create a list of what *is wanted*, see how that can be done and finally do it. If the outcome will be #2, we probably should make a big new TODO-thread/list on a public Boolean Soup Development forum, where we can port the current todo-list to and have further discussion. If the others agree with this I'll add the new forum? The forum will come in handy no matter what direction we are going to take. [Edited on January 17, 2008 by Rincewind] ____________ Personal website: http://www.loijson.com |
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| January 17, 2008, 07:44 | |
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Fiona
games are terrible -9616558 posts
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Is it worth installing a bug tracker like Mantis? A to-do or bugs list seems to get lost or unmanaged. A bug tracker would mean things can get assigned to particular people too. ____________ laffo |
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| January 17, 2008, 10:56 | |
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Sandman
F3n!x0r 1194 posts
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Yeah good plan, Fiona; I second it.
____________ BennuWiki Yes, my avatar has grey borders in IE (so get a decent browser) ROOFLEZ ROOFLEZ |
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| January 17, 2008, 12:38 | |
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Fiona
games are terrible -9616558 posts
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Can I just say I'm starting to believe I was completely wrong about the rewrite. Maybe this was best after all. Thanks for starting the thread Rince, even if it was overly harsh. ____________ laffo |
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| January 17, 2008, 18:29 | |
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yonni
None 420 posts |
Sorry for joining in this epic debate a little late, but I think that the current site is pretty awesome (except the default skin IMHO), other modules would be nice, but it doesn't feel like it needs a complete re-write at all. I do agree with DTM though. We need more people here. And that is a big problem. However, I think that that is almost intrinsicly linked to having a resource-rich site. I saw many new (I assume as I hadn't seen them before) join. I think that it was probably the lack of resources that stoped them from saying. While this is mainly an issue with users not adding enough to the site, the site itself would encourage input. An articles module would encourage articles to be written, a forum/articles/worklogs search would encourage the use of forum/articles/worklogs, sound/graphics librarys would encourage people to make games, and a good home page is absolutely essential. I'm sorry that I'm not experienced enough to help much myself, I'd really like to. Maybe I could make a new skin sometime when my current website's finished (whilst on that subject, I recommend making Lisa the default). Thanks guys for a great (hopefully getting better ;)) site ____________ |
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| January 17, 2008, 21:26 | |
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Woody
HEAD BLACK MAN 722 posts 
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The tree in my front yard picked a bad time to break my Internet connection. Probably I'm too late, but for the record I believe if we're going to be doing any significant work on the site we need to scrap this and move to a CMS. I've done a lot of work in SQL, and I would be happy to migrate the database to the new format. I think I'd be able to do it within a few days. Fiona I've been saying since before the site was even named that we should not create everything from scratch. When you insisted, I supported you, but I was afraid that instead of being for the users this would turn into a vanity project for you to demonstrate your programming skills. Now I'm sorry you're upset that things have come to a head but I think if the site is going to go anywhere you have to change your attitude and take a step back. Anyway, as always, whatever you want to do I'll be behind it. ____________ boredome is the bitter fruit of too much routine |
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| January 17, 2008, 21:50 | |
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Htbaa
Perl 368 posts 
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Unconditional support?
____________ blog.htbaa.com |
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| January 17, 2008, 23:22 | |
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Woody
HEAD BLACK MAN 722 posts
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Quoting Htbaa: Unconditional support? You see who wears the pants in this relationship. ____________ boredome is the bitter fruit of too much routine |
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| January 18, 2008, 00:12 | |
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Htbaa
Perl 368 posts
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This is too confusing 
____________ blog.htbaa.com |
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| January 18, 2008, 06:02 | |
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Rincewind
programmer 1545 posts
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Quoting Yonni: I'm sorry that I'm not experienced enough to help much myself, I'd really like to. Maybe I could make a new skin sometime when my current website's finished (whilst on that subject, I recommend making Lisa the default). We can never have enough nice skins, and your contribution would be much appreciated. Woody could certainly help you with that, or otherwise Frimkron and Fiona. ____________ Personal website: http://www.loijson.com |
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| January 18, 2008, 17:46 | |
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Fiona
games are terrible -9616558 posts
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Mysql schema will be easy to sort out. We'll keep a .sql text file in the repository that we all update when the schema changes in anyway. When it comes to upload time then we can ask SVN what the changes were between the last upload and the current date. It'll be all "this was added, this was modified, this was removed... etc" we make the relevant changes on the live server, and we're away. By the way, the locking files thing might be pretty suck, apparently SVN's merging files feature can be trusted, and if it messes up (which will probably be so rare it wont matter.) We can just get the changes between versions and resolve the conflicts easy enough. ____________ laffo |
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| January 18, 2008, 22:11 | |
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Frimkron
Frustrated Megalomaniac 703 posts
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Fi's made it clear to me that if we replace this version with a CMS, she's out and doesn't want any more to do with it. Currently it looks like most people are in favour of continuing to work on this version of the site, though I suppose this would always be the logical choice from a user's perspective. Personally I feel that at this stage a CMS would be worth exploring. Though I'd still be willing to work on version 1 of the code if that's what we decide on. ____________ |
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| January 18, 2008, 23:21 | |
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Rincewind
programmer 1545 posts
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Quoting Frimkron: Currently it looks like most people are in favour of continuing to work on this version of the site, though I suppose this would always be the logical choice from a user's perspective. Personally I feel that at this stage a CMS would be worth exploring. Though I'd still be willing to work on version 1 of the code if that's what we decide on. What we could do is decide to seriously continue working on this site with the future in mind, but merely play around a bit with Drupal on the side, to see how close we can get to configuring it to our exact needs. Then in the future we could do one check to see if the Drupal result would get a majority vote here, and otherwise permanently drop it. ____________ Personal website: http://www.loijson.com |
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| January 19, 2008, 11:58 | |
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OScoder
None 1338 posts |
Is the SVN/whatever done yet? Where is it?
____________ om |
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| January 19, 2008, 20:06 | |
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DTM
Earthling! 821 posts
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Quote: Actually I have a bunch of tutorials from my former site Great!Quote: just putting them on some forum wouldn't give them the dignity they deserve It's better than not showing them, it could be temporary. IMHO. And I was more thinking of that in terms of you lot having less to code for the module, just an indexing system (like the links section) rather than a customised page like with worklogs. Or something. Maybe you already resuse a lot of code, I don't know. Perhaps a tutorial forum could be hidden from the main message board. More stuff for the search engines == more visitors == more people whining about bug fixes and features == quicker BS development. Hmmmm. Let's talk about DIV! That DIV 1 manual tutorial (I liked it in case you didn't know. I really did  ) transformed me from a confused newbie dev into a *happy* confused newbie dev. Something like that, aimed at complete newbies, I think would be great for the site. Even if it was a forum post, it'd still get picked up by the search engines. And hopefully linked etc... I keep planning to write something like that myself, but I'm lazy Forgive me  Anyway tutorials people have already written might have the same effect. I think content has as much to do with the development as coding. But I guess that's the hard part for coders. Do you have some sort of web stats? It would be interesting to know how people get here/what they were searching for. Also regarding fenixdocs.com (and any other aliases). If it forwarded to fenixwiki.booleansoup.com, that might help BS's search ratings. At the cost of fenixdocs's individuality - just a thought! ALSO BS has no meta keywords or description. They wouldn't hurt. On the game pages they could be filled in from the game info
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Message Board > Boolean Soup Development > Boolean Soup development