code reader wrote:
i also want to ask the devs to reconsider their decision to only release the "new, mysterious style" with the gold release.
now, that 4 betas are behind us and the fifth is well in the way, you can see that the amount of bugs, bug reports and bug fixes in the style (.html) files is considerable. (4 files added, 1 file removed, 5K likes changed)
it is unreasonable to think that no bugs exist in the new template files, or that all those bugs can be found by the small team of people who have access to the new style.
not exposing the new style until the gold release practically ensures significant number of style-related bugs for 3.0.0 .
iirc, this decision was made several years ago by paul. i think that now, just before the RC, it may be a good time to reconsider.
Realizing that this is just your opinion/2 cents, let me just note that even if Paul made this decision (which I don't grant), it wasn't an arbitrary one, nor was it the type of decision that ought to come up for periodic review.
Having subSilver available significantly before phpBB 2 final release became a truly
nasty experience. Now, it may well be that the dynamics are different this time around (arguably they are) and that that experience would not be repeated. But that's difficult to evaluate with any degree of certainty, especially as nobody thought there would be problems the first time around. And as we all know, there's simply no way to say just how much time might pass from first revealing to final release.
It's a difficult call to make perhaps, but I don't see the relevance of Paul's involvement or non-involvement to this discussion. The crucial issue is what happened last time around and how important it may or may not be to avoid a repeat, as far as I can see.
Just my $0.02