Justin Tadlock's Forum Plugin for WP
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Is it true it is to be intergrated with the BBPress forum plugin?
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When Justin announced DevPress.com on his personal blog, the question was raised about the Forum Plugin he’d been working on, to which he replied:
We’re thinking of just contributing all the work back to the bbPress community for their plugin. I’ll post an update as soon as we know the direction we’re going in.
Something like a week later he posted:
The entire code base that we use to run our forums has already been handed over to the bbPress project. I sent JJJ a link to download it a few weeks ago.
As for if JJJ has used any of the code Justin had, I don’t know, chances are both were/would have been pretty similar (but I can’t confirm that!) — Only JJJ and/or Justin could tell us that!
Because of what Justin achieved, I’d love to get him on the ”bbPress (Plugin) Team” and help JJJ get this machine on the road. I myself have it running on a local install, the barebones is GREAT and I can tell you that!
Shame my coding knowledge isn’t as good!Anyway, there’s some info! HAHA
When Justin announced DevPress.com on his personal blog, the question was raised about the Forum Plugin he’d been working on, to which he replied:
We’re thinking of just contributing all the work back to the bbPress community for their plugin. I’ll post an update as soon as we know the direction we’re going in.
Something like a week later he posted:
The entire code base that we use to run our forums has already been handed over to the bbPress project. I sent JJJ a link to download it a few weeks ago.
As for if JJJ has used any of the code Justin had, I don’t know, chances are both were/would have been pretty similar (but I can’t confirm that!) — Only JJJ and/or Justin could tell us that!
Because of what Justin achieved, I’d love to get him on the ”bbPress (Plugin) Team” and help JJJ get this machine on the road. I myself have it running on a local install, the barebones is GREAT and I can tell you that!
Shame my coding knowledge isn’t as good!Anyway, there’s some info! HAHA
I’ve had a check-out for a while, but nothing of his has made it in yet.
Because there are only so many ways to do the same thing, our code is very similar with a few different methods here and there. His code is more mature in a few areas (mapping WordPress meta capabilities, topic/reply counts, additional query caching…) and it’s almost time to cherry pick his code and give props where due.
He started out using taxonomies for forums, but a lack of taxonomy meta thwarted that idea. We talked before either of us made too much progress on how to best do things so we would be loosely compatible with each other. I committed early on to using post types for data storage for everything to allow for easy forward compatibility with things like forum/topic/reply thumbnails, excerpts, revisions, etc… Justin and I both agreed it was the quickest way to go, we put our noses down and wrote some code, and we met a month or two ago in #bbpress on IRC and exchanged more code and ideas.
It was really cool for Justin to volunteer to share his code and approach. He spent countless hours getting things dialed in and that time is going to be greatly appreciated real soon.
It would have been even cooler to have him contribute patches directly to trac, but from what I recall of our talks he had some previous obligations that prevented it. I’m sure if I’m wrong Justin will catch wind and chime in.
Edit: I saw a reply in the above linked topic about him ‘turning over’ code to bbPress, but I don’t really see it like that. His code is always his, and he’s free to continue developing his plugin if he wanted to. No hard feelings.
The bbPress trac is public and the code is visible for everyone to see, versus Justin’s forum code which to my understanding isn’t something he wants openly available for download, or else I imagine he’d probably have it that way. I know from experience that supporting something as large as bbPress on top of other obligations can be a challenge, so I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to volunteer additional time.
Either way I’m honored to have his respect and be able to have someone attempting to do something similar at the same time. It’s one of the first times in my professional career I’ve had what most people would consider ‘friendly competition’ without ever feeling like we were against each other in any way… not that I’ve ever had unfriendly competition… but you get the idea.
I’ve had a check-out for a while, but nothing of his has made it in yet.
Because there are only so many ways to do the same thing, our code is very similar with a few different methods here and there. His code is more mature in a few areas (mapping WordPress meta capabilities, topic/reply counts, additional query caching…) and it’s almost time to cherry pick his code and give props where due.
He started out using taxonomies for forums, but a lack of taxonomy meta thwarted that idea. We talked before either of us made too much progress on how to best do things so we would be loosely compatible with each other. I committed early on to using post types for data storage for everything to allow for easy forward compatibility with things like forum/topic/reply thumbnails, excerpts, revisions, etc… Justin and I both agreed it was the quickest way to go, we put our noses down and wrote some code, and we met a month or two ago in #bbpress on IRC and exchanged more code and ideas.
It was really cool for Justin to volunteer to share his code and approach. He spent countless hours getting things dialed in and that time is going to be greatly appreciated real soon.
It would have been even cooler to have him contribute patches directly to trac, but from what I recall of our talks he had some previous obligations that prevented it. I’m sure if I’m wrong Justin will catch wind and chime in.
Edit: I saw a reply in the above linked topic about him ‘turning over’ code to bbPress, but I don’t really see it like that. His code is always his, and he’s free to continue developing his plugin if he wanted to. No hard feelings.
The bbPress trac is public and the code is visible for everyone to see, versus Justin’s forum code which to my understanding isn’t something he wants openly available for download, or else I imagine he’d probably have it that way. I know from experience that supporting something as large as bbPress on top of other obligations can be a challenge, so I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to volunteer additional time.
Either way I’m honored to have his respect and be able to have someone attempting to do something similar at the same time. It’s one of the first times in my professional career I’ve had what most people would consider ‘friendly competition’ without ever feeling like we were against each other in any way… not that I’ve ever had unfriendly competition… but you get the idea.
Just saw Justin’s most recent post on his forums which makes it look like we have some catching up to do!
Just saw Justin’s most recent post on his forums which makes it look like we have some catching up to do!
Thanks to JJJ for pointing this topic out to me.
Right now, my forum plugin isn’t planned for public release. I’d much rather see a community-supported plugin because a lot more can get done. The plugin could simply be better developed and have better support if it’s a community-run project. Make no mistake, a plugin like this is massive amounts of work, more than one person can realistically handle. Honestly, I don’t want to be the only person developing and supporting a forum plugin.
The reasons I’ve been doing my own thing rather than fully devoting my time to bbPress:
1) I just wanted to see if I could do it for fun.
2) I had some projects that needed basic forum functionality that couldn’t wait for alternate solutions.
3) Everybody wants something, mostly things I don’t believe belong in a lightweight forum plugin.
4) I’ve been hesitant to get more involved in bbPress because I don’t want to deal with all the drama here.
I just finished three months of intense writing for a WP plugin book, so my time has been limited for a while. I’ve still got book-related things this month as well. Once this process is done, I plan to devote more time to the bbPress plugin.
What we want:
These are the things I believe most of us want, which is the reasons I put together a plugin and the reasons for the bbPress plugin. This comes down to two things:
* A plugin that easily integrates into the WordPress user/role and login system.
* Forums that can be managed from our WP admins.
It’s basically about being able to run forums without a lot of hassle.
The direction I’d like to see the bbPress plugin go:
* Stick with the philosophy: lightweight and basic.
* Allow plugins to extend anything needed beyond basic forum functionality.
* Use the functions WordPress provides where possible.
* Forget backwards-compatible hooks and functions. Build a new system.
Thanks to JJJ for pointing this topic out to me.
Right now, my forum plugin isn’t planned for public release. I’d much rather see a community-supported plugin because a lot more can get done. The plugin could simply be better developed and have better support if it’s a community-run project. Make no mistake, a plugin like this is massive amounts of work, more than one person can realistically handle. Honestly, I don’t want to be the only person developing and supporting a forum plugin.
The reasons I’ve been doing my own thing rather than fully devoting my time to bbPress:
1) I just wanted to see if I could do it for fun.
2) I had some projects that needed basic forum functionality that couldn’t wait for alternate solutions.
3) Everybody wants something, mostly things I don’t believe belong in a lightweight forum plugin.
4) I’ve been hesitant to get more involved in bbPress because I don’t want to deal with all the drama here.
I just finished three months of intense writing for a WP plugin book, so my time has been limited for a while. I’ve still got book-related things this month as well. Once this process is done, I plan to devote more time to the bbPress plugin.
What we want:
These are the things I believe most of us want, which is the reasons I put together a plugin and the reasons for the bbPress plugin. This comes down to two things:
* A plugin that easily integrates into the WordPress user/role and login system.
* Forums that can be managed from our WP admins.
It’s basically about being able to run forums without a lot of hassle.
The direction I’d like to see the bbPress plugin go:
* Stick with the philosophy: lightweight and basic.
* Allow plugins to extend anything needed beyond basic forum functionality.
* Use the functions WordPress provides where possible.
* Forget backwards-compatible hooks and functions. Build a new system.
Thanks for the update, and thanks to Justin for contributing code.
A side note: I still don’t understand why healthy debate is considered “drama.”
Thanks for the update, and thanks to Justin for contributing code.
A side note: I still don’t understand why healthy debate is considered “drama.”
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