« SMF reaction to 'unused, useless globals'
F**k the SMF project. F**k it up its stupid a**. <-- says Arantor ;)
SM.org compromised »

live627

  • Should five per cent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all / 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
  • Posts: 1,670
A confident man keeps quiet.whereas a frightened man keeps talking, hiding his fear.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #31, on March 16th, 2013, 03:01 AM »
Note I was quite specific about what doesn't work. There is detection code for SP, ezP and ADKP in there, though whether it works, I have no idea.

What is supposed to happen is that the mods add their buttons as normal, and then they become available in the add-button area, it doesn't look like they'll be added out of the box. But just for fun, you normally have to 'empty the cache' to make that work.

SD and Aeva specifically will be broken because while you can add buttons happily and tie them to membergroups etc. that's fine until there is *any other condition* that would cause them to be triggered. In the case of Aeva, for example, the child buttons only appear when there is something for them to show - there's no dropdown or anything for 'unseen' if there's nothing unseen.

But there's zero facility for that. You can add by membergroup or not at all, there's no way to check an arbitrary $context variable or anything else.

You know I said in my thoughts the other day about 'upping my game'? This was what it was about. I want to do a menu editor in the core at some point, but I don't even have to consciously make any special effort on it, doing what I normally do in terms of design and consequence will be enough! (Seriously, what I've been thinking about doing is having a menu editor and if a plugin wants to extend the menu area, it hooks into the menu *editor* not the menu directly, meaning that we can actually do caching properly etc. on the menu)
When we unite against a common enemy that attacks our ethos, it nurtures group solidarity. Trolls are sensational, yes, but we keep everyone honest. | Game Memorial

Dragooon

  • I can code! Really!
  • polygon.com has to be one of the best sites I've seen recently.
  • Posts: 1,841
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #32, on March 16th, 2013, 10:30 AM »
Quote from Arantor on March 15th, 2013, 05:42 PM
But even so... $35 for that? I think even $20 is a bit steep for it.
I'm not really in a position to judge other people's prices but I wouldn't really mind the 35$ if the mod was coded properly and worked as advertised (which I can see it doesn't from your observations).
The way it's meant to be
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #33, on March 16th, 2013, 01:41 PM »
Quote from Dragooon on March 16th, 2013, 10:30 AM
Quote from Arantor on March 15th, 2013, 05:42 PM
But even so... $35 for that? I think even $20 is a bit steep for it.
I'm not really in a position to judge other people's prices but I wouldn't really mind the 35$ if the mod was coded properly and worked as advertised (which I can see it doesn't from your observations).
Even then I would doubt it's worth $45, when basically the same can be done by hacking Subs.php for free. And I know it is for non-advanced users, but hacking Subs.php isn't difficult. I'd give it $20 at max.

Back to the original point, that is really really sloppy. He should've posted it in the team boards over at SMF to give it a review.
Not saying that we could filter all issues (my coding style is not perfect, it is far from perfect in some areas), but a big deal could be filtered out.

Three years for that little lines is a very long time. I believe my awfully coded FXTracker comes close, it was developed in about half a year.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #34, on March 16th, 2013, 06:02 PM »
For comparison, SimpleDesk ultimately took about 6 months of my time, over a 2 year period. In that time it racked up 22-odd thousand lines. While I'd be the first to admit that the number of lines is not an adequate metric of judging development, that's just shy of 5 lines per day.

Let me explain: what gets my goat about this part is how he's playing it up for the crowd. 3 years is a long time for anything - hell, I know that only too well with Wedge. But 3 years ago he didn't have even the basic skills to pull this off - 3 years ago (and I have documentary evidence, should I need to break it out), he couldn't even write DB queries or even understand how SMF did logic/presentation separation. At all. So in that 3 years, he's learnt how to write mods, including advanced ones. That's a far cry from 'starting development 3 years ago', since that kind of implies he was able to write the code off the bat back then, even a modest amount of it, which he wasn't. Most of that 3 years would have been spent learning the necessary skills.

The thing is, I pretty much guessed ahead of time how this was going to turn out, speculating that it was going to have same mentality as produced Menu Editor Lite, the same narrow-minded, conservative but arrogant logic.

Dragooon

  • I can code! Really!
  • polygon.com has to be one of the best sites I've seen recently.
  • Posts: 1,841

live627

  • Should five per cent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all / 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
  • Posts: 1,670

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #37, on March 16th, 2013, 11:21 PM »
Late bloomer? ;) Actually VB is not a bad language to get into to start with, and at least it has some ideas about type safety, PHP's 'just keep on truckin'' approach is actually not clever for beginners - as I found with C#, having to conform to structure is actually a better way of getting to understand a language than it is for scripts to work but with inconsistent and unpredictable results because of some hidden safety net.

Also, review posted with some follow up comments based on this thread. I do not expect this to end well.
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #38, on March 17th, 2013, 02:17 AM »
Also, I see vbgamer has read this thread. Well, maybe he's read the title. He clearly hasn't actually read the thread, because if he had, he would understand what I've been trying to say for years. But like everything else he's so far up his own arse, he can't see the truth for all the shit.

I think this has made my peace with them, though.

Kindred

  • Posts: 166
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #39, on March 17th, 2013, 03:03 AM »
Actually, VBgamer has been a lot more laid back lately... He's made apologies to a lot of people (I think he did so for you and Nao as well Arantor, didn't he?). :)

As for the menu mod. Thanks for the review.
I m managing two sites now where the actual admins are clueless when it comes to coding and I was considering buying the mod to simplify MY life (and allow the admins to mess with the menu)

However, based on your review, I don't think I'll bother.

I think I'll just have to write my own with a moderately quick.dirty interface....
I mean, it;s not that hard...   
rename  the subs.php array - so the system stops using it
(hmmm.... can I stop the system from displaying the menu array and replace it using hooks?)
read the array and compare it against the database
add anything that doesn't already exist to the database list..
then read out the database list into the originally named menu array.

interface... fields for
Set menu order
set menu title
set menu link
open as new tab or same tab
icon for menu item
sub-menu?
conditionals for appearance


did I miss anything








As for your comments on SMF... I definitely agree that SMF devs need to be held to the HIGHEST standard for coding mods (and for coding SMF itself)

I didn't see your comment on SMF...   and, if it was reported, the modertion was closed before I got to looking.

live627

  • Should five per cent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all / 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
  • Posts: 1,670

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #41, on March 17th, 2013, 03:13 AM »
Quote
He's made apologies to a lot of people (I think he did so for you and Nao as well Arantor, didn't he?)
He made an apology to me. I never responded because to be honest... I wasn't sure whether it was sincere or just a token gesture to get me to shut up.
Quote
(hmmm.... can I stop the system from displaying the menu array and replace it using hooks?)
Sure you can. The entire menu is exposed to a hook in the bowels of Subs.php, you can just replace it entirely. Both Menu Editor Lite and Menu Editor Pro do just that - they just straight up replace the entire menu, though IIRC neither uses hooks.
Quote
interface... fields for
Set menu order
set menu title
set menu link
open as new tab or same tab
icon for menu item
sub-menu?
conditionals for appearance
That's pretty much it. I won't deny that MEP, basically, does this. I wouldn't say it does it well, but it does at least let you do most of this stuff. The interface is reasonable, if fluffed up with a lot of jQuery nonsense like (slow) animated stuff to show you that things have been updated (when the page load will tell you that anyway)

Actually, take a look at Kays' mod. It seems to cover the general stuff fairly well from what I've seen.
Quote
As for your comments on SMF... I definitely agree that SMF devs need to be held to the HIGHEST standard for coding mods (and for coding SMF itself)
And that's where we get the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. If he's an SMF dev and releasing paid stuff, the paid stuff is a fairly good barometer for what's going to get committed, quality-wise.
Quote
I didn't see your comment on SMF...   and, if it was reported, the modertion was closed before I got to looking.
The earlier comment, a couple of days ago, which summed up compatibility with Aeva as non-existent, was deleted by Lab himself that afternoon. No report, nothing. He just straight up deleted the post - because someone else saw it in the moderation log and approached me to ask whether it was done with my consent or not. (If I wanted the post gone, I would have likely deleted it myself.)

Mind you, given the vitriol displayed by other team members in the posts I have seen, it does make me wonder what I thought there was to save in the SMF project. If there is going to be closing-of-ranks like this when someone is being called out for incompetence - because let's face it, that is the real accusation I'm making - and no refutation has been given on actual technical grounds (as opposed to a straight up ad-hominem), there's nothing I can do to fix things.

Oracle

  • Posts: 78
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #42, on March 17th, 2013, 06:25 AM »
This is where I'm coming from as a user, I've lost confidence not only in the SMF brand but where its headed.

The future of the project certainly doesn't look good from my standpoint. The lack of expertise is @ the centre of what's going on and the fact that nothing is being done to correct the situation is alarming.

Definitely a case of the blind leading the blind and it has to stop but unfortunately for SMF that doesn't appear to be possible. Those from outside who have vastly more experience are aware of what's required, have in this case attempted to highlight the MAIN issue and instead of the SMF team who are pleading ignorance taking criticsms on board and acting on them they employ the head in the sand approach to their own detriment. Instead of closing ranks on Arantor they should be heralding his foresight not pushing him away as they have done. And for what reason,,,he's more vocal than the rest of the squad...That in my eyes is a poor excuse. That's the message I'm getting is pure and simple, the majority of individuals contemplating SMF as an alternative to other forum software will think twice before coupling with SMF.

The situation that has evolved within SMF is not only damaging to SMFs brand but is a major deterrent to their very future.

There's only one answer to all this squabbling and that's GET WITH THE STRENGTH > GO WEDGE NOT SMF. Which is exactly what I will be doing.

live627

  • Should five per cent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all / 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
  • Posts: 1,670

Dragooon

  • I can code! Really!
  • polygon.com has to be one of the best sites I've seen recently.
  • Posts: 1,841
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #44, on March 17th, 2013, 07:58 AM »
Quote from Arantor on March 17th, 2013, 02:17 AM
Also, I see vbgamer has read this thread. Well, maybe he's read the title. He clearly hasn't actually read the thread, because if he had, he would understand what I've been trying to say for years. But like everything else he's so far up his own arse, he can't see the truth for all the shit.

I think this has made my peace with them, though.
Labradoodle read this thread :P.
« SMF reaction to 'unused, useless globals'
SM.org compromised »