suggestion to developers: please release beta-6

[balding_ape]

How about you tell us what you think is a reasonable amount of time to update software such as this? I guess you would be happy if everyone just said to hell with it and went elsewhere? I am sure that is what the developers here want. If for one second you dont think that is gonna happen think again. Perhaps it would help if you got out and around a little more and see what is going on elsewhere.

What does it matter what I think is a reasonable amount of time? It's taken much longer than I wanted or expected it to. I would guess that no one else is any different, including the developers.

I would be perfectly happy if people said "to hell with it" and went elsewhere. What do I care what software someone else is using?

I for one dont wanna see it go anywhere either but i suspect if things arent picked up around here this will eventually happen. And so yeah my comments are well warrented and hopefully the developers are wise enough not take them as you did. You dont like them too bad as they really dont pertain to you anyways.

What irritates me is that you seem to think you're saying something people don't already know as if you're the only one who has noticed: this was a very long release, and people are unhappy with that fact. Duh. You have a firm grasp on the obvious. The developers did not need *you* to tell them that fact, 5 years in. It's like telling a soccer team (or football, for you Europeans) that if they go a long time without scoring a goal, their fans will be unhappy.

[The Grinch]

Don't feed the trolls.

[The Grinch]

The updater is under tested? My phpBB2 -> Beta5 went pretty smooth. There were only two issues that I found with it, and they've been fixed. I haven't seen any new bugs for the converter in a while.

That's the converter, not the updater.

Converter does BB2 to BB3
Updater did beta3>beta4 and beta4>beta5

Ah ok. Which part of the updater needs more testing then? I remember running the updater for phpBB2 patches. All it did was update any tables that had minor changes and bumped up the verion number. It seems like a pretty simple piece of coding to me. Is there something new that I'm missing maybe?

[code reader]

Ah ok. Which part of the updater needs more testing then? I remember running the updater for phpBB2 patches. All it did was update any tables that had minor changes and bumped up the verion number. It seems like a pretty simple piece of coding to me. Is there something new that I'm missing maybe?

you are missing quite a lot, actually.
the "updater" you mention was/is a piece of code that is written manually every time a new phpbb-2 release in made.
the updater we are talking about is an automated tool that takes 2 specific releases, analyzes the diffs, and applies those diffs to the user's specific installation, local modifications and all. in addition, it analyzes the difference in db structure and applies those as well. so, there are 2 main differences from the phpbb-2 update_to_latest you mentioned:
1) the "updater" takes care of both code and db changes (in phpbb2 you had to do the code manually, or use easymod. in olympus, easymod is not needed for upgrades)
2) it supposed to do it automatically, so nobody will have to create and maintain the "update_to_latest" and the easymod upgrade file manually every single release.

this is entirely theoretical: i did not examine the updater/upgrader code, and i did not use it to upgrade (i always run the cvs version, and i upgrade the db manually )

iiuc, this mechanism was only tested once, on the beta-4 => beta-5 upgrade. several errors/problems were found, reported and fixed, but it will be extremely naive to think this was enough and this tool is now completely free of bugs.

[egriz]

ok, I for the first time just downloaded a cvs of phpbb3 and noticed the the current version as of 4/12/07 was 3.0.B6-dev that kinda tells me (with very limited knowledge of how it works) that there is a beta6 on the way. Am I correct in this assumption that this is how they number them or does that not have anything to do with it.

No, they always have the next stepwise version number with -dev at the end. The decision on whether that changes to 3.0.B6 or 3.0.RC1 comes when it's actually released. Up till then it's just a working version number.

Makes sense, thanks!

and here I thought I might have been on to something

[The Grinch]

1) the "updater" takes care of both code and db changes (in phpbb2 you had to do the code manually, or use easymod. in olympus, easymod is not needed for upgrades)
2) it supposed to do it automatically, so nobody will have to create and maintain the "update_to_latest" and the easymod upgrade file manually every single release.

Gotcha. I did a fresh install of Beta5 and tested the phpBB2 converter. I didn't do a Beta4 -> Beta5 upgrade.

My phpBB2 forum has always been manaully upgraded due to all the mods I have installed. Easymod worked in the beginning, but slowly became unuseable.

[Handyman]

1) the "updater" takes care of both code and db changes (in phpbb2 you had to do the code manually, or use easymod. in olympus, easymod is not needed for upgrades)
2) it supposed to do it automatically, so nobody will have to create and maintain the "update_to_latest" and the easymod upgrade file manually every single release.

Gotcha. I did a fresh install of Beta5 and tested the phpBB2 converter. I didn't do a Beta4 -> Beta5 upgrade.

My phpBB2 forum has always been manaully upgraded due to all the mods I have installed. Easymod worked in the beginning, but slowly became unuseable.

if you really want to test the converter, install a fresh CVS snapshot and run the converter… that will give you a much better idea of how things will turn out, since the converter included in "Beta 5 was semi-functional" (that is a quote from a phpBB3 developer).

And with easymod, same thing happened to me as more mods changed the core code of phpBB2.
I hope modding for phpBB3 is much better, since it was never really necessary to edit so much phpBB2 core.

[code reader]

if you really want to test the converter, install a fresh CVS snapshot and run the converter… that will give you a much better idea of how things will turn out, since the converter included in "Beta 5 was semi-functional" (that is a quote from a phpBB3 developer).

again, you are talking about the converter (phpbb-2 => phpbb-3), while i was talking about the "upgrader" (phpbb-3.0.X => 3.0.Y).
the converter is much more complex, but it is also much more tested. the upgrader, on the other hand, is severely under-tested, and that's one of the reasons, if the next version will be rc1, to allow b-5=>rc1 upgrades.
(this is also one of the reasons i think beta-6 will be a good ting....)

[DocBoum]

Considering the huge effort over this weekend to get hold of all the bugs by assigning them to the dev team (and the bitter results in the tracker today), I do believe it would be worth the additional effort to release a beta 6. This would minimize the amount of duplicate reports, keep people from posting (sometimes really pointless reports on punctuation, wording or the state of global affairs), and could free the dev team a little from the administrative stuff. Just my 0,5ct...

[cutaia]

I would be perfectly happy if people said "to hell with it" and went elsewhere. What do I care what software someone else is using?

Good point. Because if tons of people stop using phpBB, and flock to other BB systems, I'm sure the developers will keep updating and supporting phpBB just for you.