Recent content by "Mark"

I've thought about writing forum software that would work that way, but there's a lot of work involved in writing a forum. I have written a sharded project that works that way. I believe there is only two sql joins in the entire code base (which could easily be eliminated). Performance is much...

I've been there. I've got on table with 45M rows, and alters do take forever. That's one place where Oracle and the like have an advantage. In that case, I would separate the indexes into different tables, and only keep a primary key on the data table. In essence, turn the data table into a...

I meant that by buying a version, I get to use that version forever. Non-security upgrades could cost more.

Will the license be permanent? Or will there be some having-to-renew gimmick?

Myself, most likely none, at least not for the foreseeable future. Though I may use XenForo on a new forum, if the price is reasonable for the application. A lot will depend on the license terms.

This is very true. I'm an experienced net user/geek, and I often subconsciously avoid forums that use vBulletin for that very reason. It's just too different, and the interface has always seemed less intuitive to me. Hopefully XenForo takes over those!

I really like it!

Right now, not much. It didn't take off as intended, and we're switching business models. The code base may soon be getting millions of hits per day, and it's ready to handle that without slowdowns.

This is a good idea. Since most forums have a support section, and some forums are used purely for support, I could see this being a well used feature across installations.

Actually, shoutboxes/chats are very light on the database (if done correctly). You basically have two queries: a simple insert query, and a simple select query with a limit. And the select query is cacheable with the query cache in the database, as long as no new messages have been posted (a...

Of course. I'm merely pointing it out now, because it should eventually be done. That being said, it's a 30 second fix that I spent an hour writing about. I'll probably post it on my (still not created) performance blog later. There are actually further ways to optimize this, but they may...

I have a cron job on the backup machine that first does a MySQL dump, then an rsync. To copy the data. I have all my tables as InnoDB (with a couple as MEMORY for who's online and flood control). Having all my tables as InnoDB allows me to use the --single-transaction parameter to mysqldump...

I run an image intensive forum, and I have the limit set to 10 MB. That handles the 3 and 4 MB images common off digital cameras fine. And even with some 250,000 images/attachments over the past three years, it's only 40 something GB of disk space used (the forum serves approximately 850k...

Quoting is a supplemental action to replying. If I just wish to reply to a topic, I'll go to the bottom of the thread, type something in, and post my reply. If I wish to quote someone, or add a quote to my reply, then a quote button makes sense. In email, the two are mostly analogous, because...

Which is a perfectly valid point, and the best reason for not putting it above the post. But it's no worse than putting it below the signature, when you're not quoting the signature.