Beta4 or RC1?

[cutaia]

I think the people who haven't modded phpBB2 don't really care about phpBB3.

That might be the least thought out assumption I've read all week.

Let's look at it logically for a second.

Many people who run mod-less boards are: Simply afraid to mess with their code, don't have the time, don't understand the modding process, don't even realize that mods exist, have too many styles available to their users to want to mod each and every one...

There are numerous reasons that a person might not have mods that they want. These same people, however, might me just fine with installing PHPBB3.0 instead.

Think of it this way: A person with a 1994 Honda Accord may not have added a bunch of after-market parts to make it perform better. That doesn't mean they wouldn't want a brand new car with all the snazzy new features, though.

[rivaldo]

I think the people who haven't modded phpBB2 don't really care about phpBB3.

That might be the least thought out assumption I've read all week.

Let's look at it logically for a second.

Many people who run mod-less boards are: Simply afraid to mess with their code, don't have the time, don't understand the modding process, don't even realize that mods exist, have too many styles available to their users to want to mod each and every one...

There are numerous reasons that a person might not have mods that they want. These same people, however, might me just fine with installing PHPBB3.0 instead.

Think of it this way: A person with a 1994 Honda Accord may not have added a bunch of after-market parts to make it perform better. That doesn't mean they wouldn't want a brand new car with all the snazzy new features, though.

Excellent post. Great metaphor.

[Dog Cow]

I too fall in the boat of having phpBB2 with too many mods, many that I've written myself. I'd love to switch to version 3, but I just can't. It would take too long to rewrite all the code.

[ErikZ]

Let's look at it logically for a second.

Many people who run mod-less boards are: Simply afraid to mess with their code, don't have the time, don't understand the modding process, don't even realize that mods exist, have too many styles available to their users to want to mod each and every one...

There are numerous reasons that a person might not have mods that they want. These same people, however, might me just fine with installing PHPBB3.0 instead.

Logically?

(Afraid to mess with the code) so (Will be willing to mess with an upgrade)
(Don't have time to mod) so (Will have time to upgrade)
(Don't understand modding) so (Will understand upgrading)
"Have installed too many styles" is the most amusing one. Tech savy enough to install styles, but not mods?

But of course, my concept of "They just don't care. They just want a working board." is seen as "Not thought out".

You might have asked me why I believe this to be so before dismissing it out of hand.

Think of it this way: A person with a 1994 Honda Accord may not have added a bunch of after-market parts to make it perform better. That doesn't mean they wouldn't want a brand new car with all the snazzy new features, though.

It also doesn't mean they want to deal with the hassle of destroying their old car and building a new one when the old car works fine. Gets you from A to B.

[NNO-Stephen]

installing mods while even the easy ones are easy, it's still harder to do than an upgrade with less intimidating instructions is. Especially if one has zero modifications. upload files, go to a URL, upgrade complete.

[brucecw]

I think a lot of tech-savvy people don't have a good idea what the world looks like to someone who doesn't know or doesn't feel comfortable with computer languages. There are quite a few people who would feel confident enough to follow the directions to do an upgrade, but who wouldn't want to mess around with making code modifications because they might break something and not know how to get back to where they were - no matter how "simple" the code modifications look to the more tech-savvy.

[Eelke]

I do consider myself tech-savvy. I have not installed a mod for each and every feature I might like, some of which will come with Olympus (which means I'm eagerly anticipating it), precisely because it introduces more hassle than I care for when updating (since I discovered EasyMod I am now using a few mods for the most pressing needs, because it seriously reduces the hassle involved with an update). Not to mention a mod can actually stop you from updating to the latest security release because of some conflict. Which is, (combined with not enough time to actually dive into the mod code to find out why it is conflicting) a plain and simple security risk. A commitment to the uncontrolled amount of time you may spend on conflict-hunting with each and every point-release (deadline: the next time some *sshole tries to exploit a hole fixed by it) is very different from being able to take all the time you need (since you know you have a 2.0 board that isn't going anywhere) for a controlled amount of work preparing for an upgrade to the next major release. It's not that I couldn't get a modded board updated. It's just that I'd rather spend my time differently.

In short, cutaia's post isn't as silly as you, ErikZ, seem to think.

[cutaia]

Logically?

(Afraid to mess with the code) so (Will be willing to mess with an upgrade)
(Don't have time to mod) so (Will have time to upgrade)
(Don't understand modding) so (Will understand upgrading)
"Have installed too many styles" is the most amusing one. Tech savy enough to install styles, but not mods?

But of course, my concept of "They just don't care. They just want a working board." is seen as "Not thought out".

You might have asked me why I believe this to be so before dismissing it out of hand.

Think of it this way: A person with a 1994 Honda Accord may not have added a bunch of after-market parts to make it perform better. That doesn't mean they wouldn't want a brand new car with all the snazzy new features, though.

It also doesn't mean they want to deal with the hassle of destroying their old car and building a new one when the old car works fine. Gets you from A to B.

Have you ever installed phpbb? Installing phpbb consists of uploading a folder, going to your site, entering your information, and...oh right...that's it.

Have you ever installed a mod? Installing a mod entails opening file after file after file after file. Searching through each one of these files and finding codes that these people may or may not understand. Then they have to change these codes. During this code-changing process, if they miss one little parenthasis while copy/pasting, then it can stop the board from working completely. Since installing phpbb requires absoutely no knowledge of php as a language...they wouldn't neccessarily know even where to look to fix this new problem.



Yeah, I guess you're right. Installing mods is certainly as easy as upgrading a board. </sarcasm>


As for the "time" issue...come on! Installing just one mod manually can sometimes take over an hour. That's probably more than 10 times as long as simply upgrading to phpbb3.0 will take. And that's just for one mod! PHPBB3.0 will include a freakin' ton of things that would need to be "modded" otherwise.



As for your version of the car metaphor:

Modding is actually the one that's like "building a car."
Upgrading is like getting out of one car, and stepping into another.

[EXreaction]

Actually, for all those that say installing a bunch of mods will lead to problems upgrading to phpBB3.

It won't.

The only mod I know of that messes up the database so that you probably won't be able to upgrade with the default upgrader with RC1 is the CH mod.

But it is still entirely possible(Ptirhiik said he will make a converter for CH 2.x to 3.x).

And I had a majorly hacked up CH development version installed on my forums for a few months...and I mean majorly hacked development version!

Now it is running phpBB3 Beta 2. All the posts, users, forums, and all that good stuff was converted(by me and a few friends that made a phpBB2 to phpBB3 upgrade script).

[asinshesq]

Actually, for all those that say installing a bunch of mods will lead to problems upgrading to phpBB3.

It won't....

I don't know why you say that. I suppose it depends on which mods you're talking about. Example: anyone using my tabulated survey mod will have trouble upgrading to phpbb3 if they want to preserve the surveys they have already done and continue to have the ability to do new surveys. That's just a single example; there are many mods out there that will be tough to port, and if your phpbb2 board uses a mod that is more than just a convenience for the admin (e.g. one of the album mods, the mod that integrates phpbb with a listserv, etc.), you're going to have a big issue to deal with.

I haven't decided which mods of mine (if any) I will port over to phpbb3; I just don't know whether I have the time and energy to port my mods, and I'm sure I'm not the only mod author wondering about that (especially since phpbb3 seems to have a very different code base than phpbb2 so that porting over mods is not a trivial endeavour).