Fork discussion at SMF

Dr. Deejay

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Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #61, on August 28th, 2011, 09:49 PM »
I have a few ideas, too, but the fact that it's a new account does put the nail in the coffin in most of them, mind you it's admitting that it's an alias...

Though I have to say though, I'm not actually that impressed, sorry to say. Nothing there is particularly imaginative: it's practically a run through of a good number of mods, though I'd swear that they've borrowed some of the stuff from what I'm doing to the package manager.

Mind you, I know also that some of the things we have planned are massive, far larger and more ambitious than is commonly known ;)
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Nao

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #62, on August 28th, 2011, 10:45 PM »
He does acknowledge the influence of Wedge for his feature list.

JBlaze maybe? Bloc? They both are interested in forking.

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #63, on August 28th, 2011, 11:00 PM »
JBlaze already posted about his, Bloc has said lately that he's looking a little smaller in scale.

Nao

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #64, on August 28th, 2011, 11:58 PM »
Well, so I have no idea, since I don't follow the SM.org activity streams...

Anyway, a long to-do list is nice, but how much of it will be implemented eventually....?
Even Wedge has a very long to-do list and many "would like" features are in both forks, and yet to be done. Even if they're already done on Wedge.org (things like the thought system on Noisen.com or here for the Friends group, or the Buddy system being asynchronous -- I don't remember the exact term, just the fact that you can 'friend' someone without needing to be 'friended' back... -- so many things really), it doesn't mean they'll be in Wedge 1.0 -- well, hopefully they will, but there's only so much I'm willing to do to get Wedge out before 2012 :P

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #65, on August 29th, 2011, 12:01 AM »
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Anyway, a long to-do list is nice, but how much of it will be implemented eventually....?
Looking at the comments from the author, not as much as one might think. The whole tone of the post smells of lack of commitment to me.

Nao

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #66, on August 29th, 2011, 12:12 AM »
So... Someone who knows what Wedge is doing... But wants to have their own features implemented in...
Maybe someone who asked us for one of these features to be implemented, and we politely declined...? :P

I can't see any mention about threaded view so that can't be Clara... :lol:
Posted: August 29th, 2011, 12:09 AM

To ScottyBoy on the linked topic:
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I'd like to suggest getting rid of every .gif image in SMF. As a theme designer, those drive me crazy.
Well, actually GIF images are sometimes the best choice... When it comes to small icons (16x16 or smaller) with a limited number of colors (~16), GIF is often more efficient than PNG at compression time.

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #67, on August 29th, 2011, 12:14 AM »
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So... Someone who knows what Wedge is doing... But wants to have their own features implemented in...
A lot of our plans are public, but they want more social features.
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I can't see any mention about threaded view so that can't be Clara...
She doesn't have the skillset for it either.
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Well, actually GIF images are sometimes the best choice... When it comes to small icons (16x16 or smaller) with a limited number of colors (~16), GIF is often more efficient than PNG at compression time.
Can't say I've ever found that to be the case though... But as a theme designer it *does* make it easier on themers because then they're not bound by the 256 colour rule and can have alpha blended icons etc.

Nao

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #68, on August 29th, 2011, 12:23 AM »
Quote from Arantor on August 29th, 2011, 12:14 AM
A lot of our plans are public, but they want more social features.
Not that it's a bad thing to add social features... But I think they should be as low key as possible. i.e. if I'm ever adding some "+1/like" option, I'll be very likely to put them into the post menu.
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She doesn't have the skillset for it either.
Remember how she has a groupie who's also the best coderz around? :P
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Can't say I've ever found that to be the case though...
Dozens of times for me...
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But as a theme designer it *does* make it easier on themers because then they're not bound by the 256 colour rule and can have alpha blended icons etc.
Agreed, but the system needs to check for both gif and png then.
Not like it's much of a problem in Wedge though -- most icons (even the smileys) are integrated through CSS.

live627

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #69, on August 29th, 2011, 01:28 AM »
His ideas sure are interesting. Especially that theme maker. Wonder how he'll do it..
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Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #70, on August 29th, 2011, 03:04 AM »
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Not that it's a bad thing to add social features... But I think they should be as low key as possible. i.e. if I'm ever adding some "+1/like" option, I'll be very likely to put them into the post menu.
I still think the whole social networking thing is a fad, to a point, though the social networking thing is not really a million miles from forums anyway - just with much tighter controls on what you share and with whom.

Besides, the Internet was going to kill Usenet, and it didn't. Then social networks were going to kill forums, but I see no evidence that they're going to die out.

I think the social platforms like FB, Twitter, G+ are going to come down hard in the next few years. Firstly, I think users are going to stop accepting the erosion of their digital privacy in the name of profiteering, and I think in consequence there is going to be a gradual move off these platforms: relative anonymity with the ability to comment as you see fit under a pseudonym is going to come back into fashion!

Yes, adding social features - making it easier to share and discuss, but without taking away the implied group nature of things.
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Remember how she has a groupie who's also the best coderz around?
If the groupie is who I think you mean (someone with an interesting take on language and his own special words), he's not the best coder in the world. That's not my being harsh, that's an observation based on the comments he's made and the discussions that he and I have had.
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Dozens of times for me...
And are 16 colour icons that common for us?
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Agreed, but the system needs to check for both gif and png then.
Not like it's much of a problem in Wedge though -- most icons (even the smileys) are integrated through CSS.
That's a better solution really. Checking for both GIF and PNG is expensive since it's a file system call for every image, much better if you know there's a single point that's *going* to be correct, i.e. all GIF or all PNG, and if it's an all or nothing choice, I'd rather use PNG even if it slightly more expensive in some cases because I'd rather have the flexibility than the pure performance there.
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His ideas sure are interesting. Especially that theme maker. Wonder how he'll do it..
Perhaps like ColorizeIt does: http://www.colorizeit.com/styles/smf-20-themes/216.smf-curve.html

I do not particularly like this idea, though I don't have a reason for it.

tumbleweed

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Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #72, on August 29th, 2011, 09:45 PM »
Because all of the people who have the skills to work on forks are the sorts of people that would otherwise have been core dev candidates. The theory is reasonable: Nao was halfway onto the dev team, I was considered for the dev team, Bloc was part of the dev team at one time, I suspect the other fork person to have been former team, and likely former dev team.

I like how it's a subtle dig, as though the team could do no wrong, as though all of the fuckwittery that occurred was our fault.

tumbleweed

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Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #74, on August 30th, 2011, 01:16 AM »
At the same time, it's frightfully naive.

The assumption, like so many 'bleeding the parent dry' debates[1], is that all the fork people would suddenly work together on SMF core.

There was a time when both of us would gladly have said yes to working on SMF's core as devs, no messing about with politics or BS. You can probably guess what our thoughts were at the time, too, when this was made known to the team.[2]

That said, I've long suspected that post-2.0, Nao and I would have been stifled with the conservative mindset SMF has. Don't get me wrong, conservative isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't necessarily a good one either.
 1. Online piracy is, of course, the standard one, with the naive assumption that pirates would automatically become full paying customers. Er, no.
 2. Like SMF 2.0 would have been out a lot sooner, and with fewer bugs left in it.