Sugestion - Hook system like on vB 3.5

[SamG]

Mark, I think all Kail is trying to say that phpBB's focus on solid core rather than full features means a solid dependence on the MOD community, and that that dependency would be enhanced by an improved API. That might translate to bloat to you, but that's a hard argument to sustain. My first BBS experience was text only, time limited, and on a 40 column Atari display at 300 baud, but I got along pretty well. Imagine how far I'd get if I started arguing that everything added to the BBS expereince since is bloat.

[Mark The Daemon]

I see everyones points on this but a API system is (to me) bloat. Personally i wouldn't use it. I wouldn't need it, and i wouldn't want it. Now what happens if you get people that don't want to upgrade because of the API system. Now you've been saying that it would make people update more but waht about the people that don't because of the API. How do you sort that one out?

Thats why IMO a additional downloadable feature is the way to go with this one


Mark

[naderman]

naderman: You brought Drupal up, recall? I made a reference to Joomla. You have to browse a few pages here to see my last reference to Drupal.

Weird, I can't recall saying anything about Drupal in this topic before this.

So before you say I am complaining, think for a second. Discussions like these keep open source projects alive. I've contributed significantly to phpBB with time and effort over the course of many, many years and reducing my input as "complaining" is just wrong and I think you shouldn't be so eager to consider views you do not agree with as "complaints".

The only thing I called complaining were your last few posts in this topic. No need to make this any bigger than it is. Probably I should have rather called it "trying to threaten" and "being ignorant towards others arguments".

Reason I called it conservatism is because the arguments presented are not convincing and it seems to boil down to arguments like "we've done it this way and it's worked fine so why consider it?". Well working "fine" is well fine, but what if it can work GREAT instead?

Nobody said we should keep it because it works fine. We said the system you want has its flaws so we don't want to have something like that right now. While you're telling us that our arguments aren't worth anything you haven't brought up any point against them so far.

I believe the most important thing about open source development is to keep an open mind. Read the sentence twice. Thru his debate I've seen many people support my ideas so there's clearly a demand for this kind of feature. Reducing it to "complaining" is just simple rhetorics, strawman tactics, totally pointless and adds nothing.

Again, what I called complaining was your behaviour in the last few posts. I'm not saying the idea itself is stupid. However as I said above I think there are much better ways to solve the problem of difficult MODding and updating.

I really think a dependency system combined with the current MOD type (patches to phpBB source) would be much more powerful than a hook system built into the core because it allows full modification. At the same time it would not have any of the performance problems a hook system can have.

[SamG]

Mark, for the time being, the developers' intent to support v2.0.x after 3.0.0 release if at all possible is a reflection of community interest in lean and mean. So I see no reason to anticipate a problem until we actually have one.

[naderman]

I see everyones points on this but a API system is (to me) bloat. Personally i wouldn't use it. I wouldn't need it, and i wouldn't want it. Now what happens if you get people that don't want to upgrade because of the API system. Now you've been saying that it would make people update more but waht about the people that don't because of the API. How do you sort that one out?

Thats why IMO a additional downloadable feature is the way to go with this one


Mark

If phpBB itself would use a consistent API as the backend for all it's core functionality that would be quite an improvement for the code and for MOD authors. phpBB3 is taking us a step nearer to something like it but it's still far from a perfect API which is used as the backend. Such an API doesn't have anything to do with MODs or hooks themselves but it can help improve both systems.

[Kail]

SamG: You're correct. It's somewhat FUDish, I apologize if someone feels offended. I think Acyd and the team are doing one helluva job to tell the truth but I'm also somewhat frustrated by the dogged resistance this kind of idea gets. I'm not saying this should be a high priority right now but it has to be eventually as the competing products are beginning to implement this kind of feature. I want to continue use phpBB, I want it to be great. If I didn't I wouldn't be arguing for this.

Mark: I understand that but at the same time you are a minority and it's not really feasible to design this kind of forum system with advanced users like us in mind since the great majority of users are at a whole different level when it comes to knowledge about servers, PHP, SQL and all the other relevant skills. I've always argued for optional features what phpBB is concerned, stuff you can disable or enable at will and so would this system be the way I imagine it. This just seems to be something a lot of users would love and it would get phpBB more market shares, we got to give IPB and vB a good fight.

naderman: I don't think I have ever complained, if you think so you have probably misunderstood me. I haven't ignored the points raised either I just don't think any of them is especially good. If we are to talk performance, non-pluggable MODs that waste queries and could potentially sink your site is worse than a hook system which enables throttling of features. I just happen to believe the advantages are so much greater than the disadvantages.

Something worth considering would be the time it would take to implement it and whether it would benefit enough many users to warrant it. Perhaps it would be wiser to concentrate on phpBB's core features. Should phpBB support modules/MODs and aim to become a forum framework or should it aim to be "just a forum" though not so extremely easy to modify?

People have different views regarding that. It's up to the project to decide what way to go.

[Yoda_IRC]

Is an API and an auto-moding system getting confused here?
Or do I just have a differant interpritation of what an API is?

An API for the current code would be really useful. Smething that just documented all the included functions would make writing mods easier (including tradiional ones) and wouldn't affect overhead.

It looks like this is being thought of as from the source it looks like there is a plan to use some automated tool to produce documentation fro the comments (Warning: This is speculation). Looks like a few more @param lines could help as some functions don't have any parameters documented.

Anyway I thought this thread was about making a system to automaically install mods to a board, similar to how FireFox adds extensions, a simple select a Mod, click install thing, which although would require some kind of API isn't the same thing as an API is it?

[Kail]

No, it's not the same thing as an API. An API is great regardless of whether a hook system is implemented or not. An API for generating forms would be very useful IMO.

[Mark The Daemon]

Apoligies for my post before, i didn't intend to use API, it should have been Hook system. That's what you get when your not giving 100% attention to the task in hand


Mark

[SamG]

I probably helped/caused the confusion as well. Too much shorthand thinking on my part.