Suggestion - Regarding the wait...

[Amirsan]

umm yea, there are many webmasters like myself that find it impossible to plan ahead with this "its ready when its ready". This is not rushing by any means, but atleast give us a time, a month, for which we can work on. And if that cannot be done, then why dont give us atleast a list of features and things they have to do and a percentage of what has been completed so we have a good idea of how much more has to be finished.

I am sure its not easy to make this software, but I am sure its not easy to deal with people like me and others who constantly ask when its done; not becuase they are ignorant, but for the fact that the fate of thier site lies on when this is going to be ready. And its not the fact of how soon it will be done, since I by all means is not rushing, but I need to set some priorities.

I myself was planning on starting a cms to be based on phpbb2.2 however if I cant get one simple clue of when it might be done, then how can I plan my cms?

Anyways, it was only a suggestion which should take no time to do. A simple list of features and things to do, with a percentage to the side of them is not so hard.

And if something like this exists, why not put a big link on the top of the forum, after that you should not have the 50 other people asking the same questions.

[SamG]

Again, please consider that the problems with 2.2 delays have been unique in phpBB's history. No amount of documentation helped. The developers have already missed publicly-stated good faith estimates regarding phpBB 2.2 release, and that's largely due to non-technical issues. No amount of information about 2.2 itself can account for the long delay we've seen happen. In other words, as I said earlier, we have had information and we have had estimates and yet we are where we are today in spite of all this.

The good news is that the developers have formualted ways to minimize recurrence of this problem. For now, we're all (developers included) in a difficult situation.

[Amirsan]

ook... so can there be atleast a list of features with the progress listed for each? Its such a simple idea!

[delos]

if they want to let beta out in ~23 days then imho there would not be much point to that list. does it really matter if a function is 87% or 89% done?

the last time i checked the cvs, the pm system was not working at all. i hope they make it in time.

[psoTFX]

ya see and that post is yet another example of why I dislike giving even hints of release dates. Do not, I repeat, do not go expecting a release in "~23 days". What I said was I intended to release a beta late Jan-early Feb though that date may slip ... and in all honesty it most likely will, though hopefully not by a great margin.

[dagta]

I can't believe how much whining I see on these forums everytime I visit. Everyone, every last one of us, is looking foward to the release of phpbb2.2.

Disappointed in how long it's taking? How about you demand a refund for every bit you've paid for phpbb. Get it, yet? The developers owe you NOTHING. This is free software that is built as a hobby by programmers using their unpaid free time to develop. They don't have any need to even do this project, let alone release it free to the world.

It's free - hence you have zero reason to complain. If you are unhappy with it, then use another forum software! I wouldn't be surprised if the developers released zero information about phpbb2.4 until it was in beta as a result of how whiny these forums are every day.

[SamG]

ook... so can there be atleast a list of features with the progress listed for each? Its such a simple idea!

Another idea that we've discussed before as a community. The chief problem here is that phpBB's feature set is one of the last things to be finalized, since in the case of major updates the developers try to allow for community input on the feature set over much of the development cycle. So, likely we could see reliable progress indicators only on those features planned by the developers from the outset. The sum of the indicators wouldn't necessarily reflect the actual percentage of completion.

[Wert]

ook... so can there be atleast a list of features with the progress listed for each? Its such a simple idea!

Even "simple ideas" take time and plenty of it. Do you really wish the devs to delay the release of 2.2 by spending all their time dithering around with continual "progress reports"?

[delos]

ya see and that post is yet another example of why I dislike giving even hints of release dates. Do not, I repeat, do not go expecting a release in "~23 days". What I said was I intended to release a beta late Jan-early Feb though that date may slip ... and in all honesty it most likely will, though hopefully not by a great margin.

oh come on! now that is just paranoid! it was you who said that you intend to get the beta out by end of january/beginning of febuary and that is in ~23 days (~ means about!). i only gave that as a number because i wanted to show that the development is nearing finish (compared to the previous years).

i have never bithced about any changed release dates and i am not planning to start if you change this one. but please remember that the time was given by you and you haven't changed it yet. am i not allowed to belive it, quote it or talk about it? that is just insane.
you have to put a disclaimer under any hint about the time of the releases.
"We just said that because we were bored. We are 200% certain that this will change, thus you do not have the right to belive this date, rely on it, tell others about it or discuss it in the forums!"

stop being paranoid please. just because a few people are idiots doesn't mean that everybody will hate you if you have to move the date.

[psoTFX]

Stop being paranoid? Talk to me like that again here and you'll know how "paranoid" I can be.

I'll say this slowly once more ... the date I gave (as I very clearly noted) was approximate and subject to slippage. What I don't need, what none of us need, are people saying "ooh ooh ~23 days ooh ooh". If you had said, late Jan/early Feb maybe a little later ... fine ... but when you start quoting actual days the idiots (of which there are many) fixate and cause problems.

I've noted before how I dislike giving any kind of release date ... because invariably something occurs, either it's missed or people fixate on it, which leads only to bad things. I also noted don't make me regret saying what I've said else I'll say no more. That comment is periously close to doing that.