CB 1.2 Status Report

bertm wrote:

It hurts to watch all of the flaming. If you have never developed a website before, you might not know that it is usually wise to go with what you have rather than what might be coming in a few (days, weeks months).

Other OS developers will revise and release weekly. Is that what you want for CB? If so, you're crazy. CB is a platform, not a widget. It is in EVERYONES interest that revisions be INFREQUENT and that each revision be as feature rich and bugfree as possible.

Baby steps would KILL CB and everyone who uses it.

Beat and Nant are smart enough to know this and to do the right thing, regardless of the NOISE and TAUNTS coming from the peanut gallery.

Be real everyone. we are on the eve of the first doc subscriber release (speaking metaphorically, if not literally). Pay the doc subscription, and hold your breath for an exhilarating ride.

a CB fan.

Bertm, I couldn't agree more and sincerely applaud you for eloquently making this point.

People frequently just don't understand the development process, especially when it comes to something as complex as a framework.

You couldn't have said it better.

Thanks to CB, Beat et al for holding the line and not giving in to obvious pressure to 'babystep' CB.

And I'm saying this with no less than 8 current dev projects that are on hold waiting for 1.2! (and yes, I know the whole 'install 1.1 then upgrade to 1.2' thing, but that doesn't work so well when there's things like client training, screencasts, etc all depending on the new features and interface).

Just hang in there guys.. It will be out soon. I just unfortunitly sent Beat a few bugs that took a good bit of time by them selves to track down and fix so he wasnt able to knock out all the other ones already submitted as quick as expected. So thats a good bit of the delay (My fault, blame me :silly: ). Not to mention just about ALL of the internal framework has been changed for future ver plans, and a bunch of new features added so all of those needed to be completely checked for bugs and fixed as found. I believe what CB 1.2 has become is alot more than what was originally planned. Gawd knows Beat never sleeps cause I always see him working on it. The poor man worked him self sick.

Feel better Beat!

Hmmm
I thought I had subscribed to the 2008 Doc (logged in, clicked the "click here to subscribe now for 2008" link, it took me to my profile and I clicked subscribe, did pay pal thing), looks like I did the 2007 instead lol
Year 2008 Expiring 2008-12-31, I subscribed last month so not quite a full year...

As someone who has spent countless hours sitting in front of a computer screen trying to figure out what I needed to do to get something on my site, I have a great respect for the programmers that are taking on this HUGE project. I am in awe of their selflessness and their dedication to making things better for people like me that do not have the ability to do what these people can do.
Even in my position I am amazed at the number of people that will ask "do you have it done yet?", after they have just spent the day watching T.V. or going out with their friends and families. If you have the means and the ability to do what these people are doing, then by all means, do it!. If not, then let them do what they are doing.They are people doing this because they LOVE to do it, not because you are paying them the thousands of dollars they would be getting if this were a commercial job.
I for one, am glad there are others like this doing what they do so I can concentrate on what I can do.
Thanks 'Community Builder Team' for all you are "and have been" doing.
Looking forward to receiving the benefits of all your hard work.

Brimstone

Post edited by: Brimstone, at: 2008/05/28 15:36

I think where I am frustrated is that there are a LOT of smart developers here who wouldn't mind contributing [that's an understatement - we are begging to be allowed to contribute] - not only cash, which I and many others have done - but time as well.

Closed betas for open source projects? It just doesn't make sense to me, I guess. The core developers are ignoring their most valuable resource - the community.

We're seeing cathedral style development where (if this thread is any indication) there are 10's ... 100's maybe even thousands of people who are willing [begging] to help find and fix any issues, and even vet proposed patches before sending them so as not to overwhelm the core developers with additional work.

It's true that development can't easily be parallelized, but bug hunting (and bug fixing) certainly can - and that's where we've been for the last few months. I *bet* these bugs could be knocked out in a matter of days if not hours with a simple, alpha release - or better yet - anonymous read access to a subversion / CVS repository.

We aren't all "takers", we like to contribute because we (the CB community) also love the craft and want to contribute our not-insignificant expertise.

But with the current development methodology (closed, cathedral style releases) there isn't any way for me to contribute code - or even LOOK at the new API so I can make my modules work - JQuery issues or no.

Maybe it is time to re-visit the heart of open-source?

catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html#catbmain

...
6. Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.

7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.

It's still not too lat to begin treating the community like co-developers.

I do appreciate the work of everyone involved ... I'm just hoping that there can be some "openness" to CB in the (very near) future.

Nick

Post edited by: commercemeister, at: 2008/05/28 20:03

commercemeister. I have contributed code to CB along with hundreds of others. And with each well thought out contribution, Beat & Nant have snapped up the mods and suggestions with enthusiasm, and a commitment to try to work these changes and enhancements into the next revision.

I sense community here.

I dont think anyone expects that RC1 will be a final release. I think Beat & Co expect to see thousands of redundant reports and complaints about all sorts of bugs, quirks and anomalies, trickling in within hours after initial download. Any bug that he can squish before RC1 will reduce the noise level SIGNIFICANTLY.

CB is being re-architected. Use of the term "cathedral" seems to suggest that Beat & Co are condescending toward us.

thats crap

CB IS open source, and one of the best examples of a working OS community on the planet.

All ahead full.