Wedge
Public area => The Pub => Off-topic => Topic started by: Arantor on December 15th, 2012, 04:55 AM
-
So, I've been reading up on vB 5, mostly out of the trainwreck mentality, and a bit of curiosity about how it's shaping up and one of the things I've seen is commentary from developers doing a sort of peer review.
It also brings to mind a conversation I've had in the last couple of days, about coding style, where I said that a fair chunk of Wedge's code is written 'SMF style', which is a completely fair assessment from my perspective; Nao and I spent so long writing for/with SMF that it's not really surprising that it has shaped how we do things. There are some more modern things - there are more classes and things like exceptions in the newer code, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still carrying a lot of SMF structure and mentality to it.
Now, there are some interesting debates about OOP and procedural coding out there (and we are more OOP than the past) but my real point is... does it actually matter?
The only people who are going to see the code are the people who are going to modify the code, either directly or through a plugin - and of course us, in development and bug fixing. Whether something uses OOP or not should not be a concern for most people - and even for the people who do have a concern because they use the code, I'm not entirely sure most of them understand all the ramifications - heck, I'm not entirely sure I do some of the time.
Having classes to bundle functionality can be important. But it doesn't have to be as important as some of the pundits and reviewers say it is.
What I do know, and believe in, is using the right tool for the job. OOP is a tool, nothing more, but a lot of the 'but it isn't OOP' stuff seems to drift into the realms of 'when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail'. There's good OOP, there's bad OOP, just as there's good and bad procedural code, and we have a strange mish-mash, some of which we've inherited and some of which we've fixed.
But how many people care? As long as it works, does it actually matter that much?
/discuss
-
In my mind, it doesn't matter. Objects or no, just ensure that it's readable and logical. And unified - one style in the entire project.
(and lulz at vB)
-
For what I know and understand, I agree with live. Pick the tool you need and you're more comfortable with, and be sure to be consistent and clear (it would help you in primis). :)
-
I agree with the above, it's important to go with what you're comfortable with. That being said, I'm personally more comfortable with OOP as it has grown on to me in the recent past (I've been using it almost exclusively for past few years), I find it easier to follow especially on larger projects and frameworks, unless you happen to be Gallery 2 which is a plane crash on a train wreck. As you probably would've seen from my recent codes, I tend to write almost everything under classes and objects with procedural wrappers if required.
-
I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it... For the last two years we've both used a good share of procedural coding and a small share of OOP when we felt like it (me, mainly for the templating object and hopefully soon for the hasBrowser code), it should depend on what we feel is best, rather than whatever rules we set for ourselves. We're shaped by how SMF was developed, it's a given, and it's not a bad thing -- most of the SMF devs were and are still good developers with good guidelines for themselves. I see no reason to try and move into another direction... ;)
-
What I'm worried about is more people writing off Wedge (and other of the free platforms) because it doesn't match up to some theoretical ideal of how code should look. Enough people write off the free platforms as being 'toys' and not 'real' software as it is.
-
What I'm worried about is more people writing off Wedge (and other of the free platforms) because it doesn't match up to some theoretical ideal of how code should look. Enough people write off the free platforms as being 'toys' and not 'real' software as it is.
-
Sure... the problem is that there are people who have it in their head that OOP is the 'answer to everything' and anything that isn't fully OOP is fundamentally wrong. Mind you, there are plenty of other issues to address in the free space first...
-
"OOP is the end-all and be-all to code. You don't use it? Screw you! You blaspheme against the coding gods! You desecrate the sacredness of OOP!"
"But why is it better?"
"Uhh... just f***ing use it!!!"
:niark:
It''s like dealing with the Apple fanboys.
Disclaimer: This does not apply to those who prefer OOP because they find tit more local and easier to use.
-
Sounds like feline :P
It''s like dealing with the Apple fanboys.
What it comes back to is that it is a tool for a job, and that you shouldn't try to do what Java does and force everything into this object pattern because it makes it ugleeeee.
-
To use OOP doesn't matter to me. I've read about many bloggers making use of OOP and I tried to get into the trend but I just do not see the need for it. It's not making a huge difference except the code loses a bit of readability from my point of perspective, even after I copy a few examples. Still looks ugly to me.
-
What I'm worried about is more people writing off Wedge (and other of the free platforms) because it doesn't match up to some theoretical ideal of how code should look. Enough people write off the free platforms as being 'toys' and not 'real' software as it is.
-
There are some people who like Apple devices and build quality but are not fanbois. (Like me.)
-
Quick, name one other pure blogging platform out there that isn't WordPress.
Therein lies the challenge. WP is crap, of course, but there's a real shortage of other platforms that aren't hosted. Yes, there's MovableType but I'm still not sure how much of it actually requires Perl any more. Other than that... I'm struggling to think of any that you can actually host yourself on standard hosting.
On the other hand, there's a multitude of forum packages - off the top of my head, there's Wedge, SMF, MyBB, phpBB, PunBB, FluxBB, Vanilla, YaBB... *deep breath* IPB, vBulletin, XenForo, Woltlab Burning Board, WowBB *deep breath* and that's before getting into the likes of Joomla and Drupal's forum modules (the 'official' ones), or for that matter things like bbPress.
Much as I hate to legitimise it, http://www.forum-software.org/vote-for-best-forum-software-of-2012 lists a lot of software.
-
Off the top of my head..? Dotclear (because it's French), Nucleus (because I used it back in the early noughts), and SPIP (just look at my old website http://dossiers.cyna.fr -- still the best pro-writer-oriented CMS IMHO, to this day.)
Really, there are tons of platforms around, it's just that WP has managed to outshine them all, not out of sheer quality, but because most people settled on it, and thus there's this 'virtuous circle' where blog users install WP because everyone is using it and thus it has the most support. Just like the S3 phone is the most used, and thus gets more attention from coders... :P
/meis wondering whether he shouldn't go for a S3 Mini... Ah ah ah.
-
And that's two platforms I've never heard of and one that is by comparison so niche it's unreal. WordPress has come to the fore for some reason and most people don't know anything else.
The point I was making is that while there *are* alternatives to WP, they're a long way down the totem pole, while in the forum world, it's not as if there is one serious front-runner, there are several that all joust for position.
-
And that's two platforms I've never heard of
The point I was making is that while there *are* alternatives to WP, they're a long way down the totem pole, while in the forum world, it's not as if there is one serious front-runner, there are several that all joust for position.
-
Don't worry, vBulletin is going to come crashing down a bit when vB 5 lands, it's going to upset a lot of people. Not to mention that the lawsuit against XenForo has effectively frozen development now, to the point where there has been no new releases, not even bug fixes, in the best part of a year, and I'm given to understand that one of the two developers has also left the company.
Next year is going to be a very interesting year since I see no reason why we won't be able to push forward to some kind of public release.
-
I'm not worrying... That vB is actually successful despite sucking in the first place (bad UI choices mostly), is simply what bothers me...
Next year, I'm guessing Wedge will be directly propelled to the Top 5 of best forum software, but OTOH maybe myBB or others will have caught up as well... Never underestimate competition ;)
-
Remember that vB has been around for over a decade, as has phpBB and because vB has been around that long, and survived, it's been very much the 'go to' software, despite Internet Brands trying so hard to kill the momentum with 3.7 onwards (which is when their meddling started, 4.0 was the first version that was solely produced by them and Kier himself even said that it couldn't be done in the timescale that IB wanted it done in, seeing how the manager of Jelsoft was lying to IB about how far development into 4.0 was, the whole thing's a nuclear CF.)
I'd love to see Wedge there this time next year but I'm also aware that MyBB has an awful lot of snobbish fanboys who will tell all their friends not to use Wedge because it's 'a modified SMF'. Lots of arrogance right there.
(Mind you, interesting fact, MyBB was copyrighted from 2003, just as SMF was, and yet their forum is less than 1/4 the size of SMF's support forum.)
-
I personally pray that our support forum will be 1/4 the size of MyBB's, even less would be better, if only because I know I'll never read all of those posts anyway... :P
-
Oh, it won't be a problem. The biggest hurdles about support - file permissions - aren't nearly as much of a problem (or shouldn't be :D)
-
How is IPB going?
-
Well, IPB is kinda ugly under the hood and there are some things I really don't like about the way it does things, but all in all, it's really not that bad. It's not particularly efficient, but to a point that's a valid assessment on IPB's part - if you're paying for the software, you're likely to be prepared to pay for decent hosting too so the higher number of queries is acceptable.
What amazes me, really, is what's included out of the box. There's a shit-ton of features I would never have thought of, let alone integrated for easy use. Things like LDAP support, IP.Connect, RSS importing (feed posting) as well as truly configurable RSS exports (you can actually configure what feeds are available, rather than having something that just serves whatever's requested, permission permitting)
One of these days I should go through and do a commentary on everything it has. XenForo was, IMNSHO, not really worth the cash. I'm not entirely sure about IPB's plugins, but IP Core itself is quite reasonable for what you get.
-
Also, one thing I've resolved that I'm going to do in the next few days is to extend my spreadsheet. I've already said I have a spreadsheet of SMF mods, and what I'm going to do is add the features of IPB (that aren't already mirrored in an SMF mod that needs making anew for Wedge) to the bottom as part of my to-do list. I don't need to look at the code to do that, I can see the admin functions and figure out what I'd like to see for Wedge in plugin form.
I certainly won't be touching any code of theirs if I can possibly help it, partly because it's the right thing to do (to avoid looking) and partly because I hate their coding standards. So many extra spaces everywhere and way too many extra braces, it almost physically hurts to read their code.