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1
Features / Re: Badges and the displaying thereof
Arantor « on December 22nd, 2012, 11:41 PM »
Yup. It's a mod, user interfaces by definition are less important, and really that's not the worst user interface I've ever seen.

I'm still not sure what our UI for this should look like.
2
Plugins / Re: Calendar
Arantor « on December 5th, 2012, 03:20 AM »
And therein lies the problem. I actually had a sort of related discussion earlier on today that touches on this.

Nao and I have an awkward position: we're just not able to throw any old code together and push it out. Even if we were cowboys without scruples, we certainly shouldn't be doing that. Being the project developers is a responsibility - buying into our platform[1] means we have certain responsibilities as part of that.

One of those responsibilities, as far as I'm concerned, is making sure users have their data to themselves. If they want to integrate it with third parties for whom privacy is a buzzword to toss around, that's their problem, not mine. But that's not really the issue that irks me so much.

What gets me is when people are quite prepared to suggest that I toss aside something I've spent a lot of time and energy on, so they get their shiny thing quicker (because if I'm not working on something, presumably I can drain my spare time off into fixing some of the other stuff). They forget that what gets done around here is solely down to Nao and I having the time and energy to do it, and every time I hear 'you shouldn't bother with that, you should just use <x>', I can't help but see hypocrisy in it. And that annoys me immensely.

Take this very example. There are reasons why I could dispense with the calendar. Some people don't want it, and that's cool. But to suggest I should stop working on it (when I was quite enthusiastic about it!) just because there are 'more important' things to work on is a great fallacy and one only enjoyed by the ignorance of what's involved.

See, Wedge isn't just a forum software. It's a platform at the heart of a (currently very small) ecosystem. The core doesn't need a calendar, as evidenced here. But the ecosystem does, and I can't rely on third parties to develop it (either as a self contained feature or integrated into Google Tentacleplex), so I have to do it - and I think a lot of people actually forget things like that. But I can't forget it. I don't have that luxury, I wish I did, because it would make my life a lot less stressful.

Let me add a little something to the party. I have a spreadsheet listing SMF mods. I'm not ashamed to admit this, but it lists every mod on the mod site as far as I was able to compile it, and by the name of each mod, I have a listing for 'yes', 'no', 'maybe', 'should be core' and 'is already core'. There are about 1600 items on this list, of which there are nearly 300 to-do items on there, almost 600 no's, and about 500 maybes, the rest being made up by as-core or already core, or in 11 cases so far, ones where plugins exist to replace that functionality.

That is, ultimately, how I see the ecosystem. There's so much left to do. And I would really appreciate people not telling me that I shouldn't bother and just hand it off to a third party who cannot be trusted to do anything.
 1. Remember, it's not all about money, not all investment is financial.
3
Features / Re: You will have to revalidate in...
lazyt « on November 3rd, 2012, 05:26 PM »
Sounds like an excellent idea to me. Especially the way some people like to leave their systems on multiple tabs.
4
Plugins / Re: Optional hooks
Arantor « on June 5th, 2012, 12:40 PM »
Way ahead of you, when you declare the hook, add the optional parameter:

Code: [Select]
<function point="hookname" function="myfunction" filename="$plugindir/File" optional="yes" />

Registers the hook but doesn't enforce it as being absolutely required.
5
The Pub / Re: About SMF and this project
Arantor « on November 3rd, 2012, 02:31 AM »
Quote
The biggest problem I notice with people's opinions on SMF is that it is obviously too bland. Within those 5 years, something could have been done to help bring it further into what the web is now rather than what it was 5 years ago. I'm not totally sure if SMF was just designed to be very bland in itself, but to me, this concept won't last very long in a very dynamic and engaging web.
It's not as simple as that. In that 5 years, you had a complete turnover of developers, and for at least a year, activity was pretty much zero. But to not all of the web has to be dynamic and engaging - not every site has to be such.
Quote
In my opinion, the only reason it could never be as flexible as SMF's system (atleast right now) is obviously because SMF allows any code to be changed.
Yup, that's the practicality of it - if you're in the situation where you can change *any* code, it allows for complete flexibility, but you've seen all the problems attached to it. I'd rather have less functionality and far less support headaches.

I'm satisfied with the overall level of flexibility that can be achieved.
6
Development blog / It only took two guys two years...
Nao « on November 1st, 2012, 06:27 PM »
...And 2 months, and 2 days.
Okay, maybe not 2 days, more like 6, but apart from Pete and I, you weren't there to count in the beginning, were you? ;)

Just in case you aren't aware yet, I finally managed to put the finishing touches to a 'usable' version of Wedge, and released it early this morning to early beta testers.

In order to download it, you'll have to request access in the relevant topic, but since this is still a private alpha, we're going to be giving access mostly to those of you who've been following us for some time (and posting along), anyone who seems serious about Wedge and testing it.

Our plans are to release a public alpha before the end of the year (well, just in case the Incas were right). We're going to try and keep Wedge in frozen mode, so we won't be adding any new (major) features, although we do have a few outstanding features (or bug fixes) which we plan to ship before we go public. And who knows, maybe we'll have a good week at some point and will even be able to go gold before the end of the year...? Naah, can't be.