Lisa
Well-known member
"Important" suggests elitism - the problem with the term important is people then start to believe their own press
What's important to some people won't be important to another.
Developer access to Alpha Testing XenForo 2.0
- Thread starter Steve F
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What's important to some people won't be important to another.
Liam W
in memoriam 1998-2020
Teapot
Well-known member
I would like to see an early alpha available, although for all the reasons listed and more I feel that artificially limiting it would pose more problems than it solves. I feel more that they should be released to license-holders, but hidden behind an opt-in process (or well-buried "show unstable development builds" switch) and not advertised in the usual manner, other than the announcement on the forum that they're there. I would also emphasise the alpha nature of the software more obviously than is done now for betas - including, perhaps, a banner in the ACP informing users of such.
(I say this because if it were only released to known developers, I'd not get a look in as I haven't released any code on the Resource Manager, even though I've written a lot!)
(I say this because if it were only released to known developers, I'd not get a look in as I haven't released any code on the Resource Manager, even though I've written a lot!)
Daniel Hood
Well-known member
Life isn't fair man and you are limited to rules/laws. If you can't afford to do something, you don't get to do it. That's life. Laws prohibit you from signing certain documents if you're under a certain age, or consuming certain substances, etc... Again, not just you, I don't mean "you" literally. You can't rent a car under 25 from certain companies, that applies to me (I'm 24). It's some stuff you have to get over. If a bunch of my friends want to go somewhere and I can't afford to, that's on me, not them. Apple says you can't develop apps without paying $100 to publish them, I don't want to pay that and can't justify it, so I have never done so. That's me. I don't expect them to be like "oh some people can't justify it" and drop the price.
If they have policies, it's on you to make them work.
Liam W
in memoriam 1998-2020
Maybe so, but things should try to be fair. And currently they are. It's a shame certain acts are against the law, or the eradication part of my statement would be more likely to come true... But I don't really want to break the law, due to the consequences of doing so.
Life should be fair. It's that simple.
And I'm going to change this subject, because bad things happen when I start ranting about this.
Liam
They don't have to accept it. People don't accept things sometimes, the issue is it generally lands them in jail.
Steve F
Well-known member
By the time beta is out then you have a horde of users trying to upgrade their sites and causing a tremendous amount of support for the add-ons and styles. Sure you can say "its beta don't expect support" but you know as well as I do that people don't read those things and just want the newest feature ASAP. So at the beta stage it would be a bit late to try and make sure there are as few of issues as possible.
Lisa
Well-known member
Maybe a new feature? Upgrade at your own risk and if it breaks flash up a WE TOLD YOU NOT TO DO IT! message
Liam W
in memoriam 1998-2020
Maybe a new feature? Upgrade at your own risk and if it breaks flash up a WE TOLD YOU NOT TO DO IT! message
Yeah, that's a nice idea
I'll just butt in here with a few thoughts.
Firstly, we are a long way off needing to think about this issue. Mike and I aren't even in a position to describe the extent of the backward compatibility breaks at this point (although we know that they will be extensive).
Secondly, we are acutely aware of the value of our add-on community, and we will do everything we reasonably can to ensure that developers have as much information as possible about the changes as and when they happen.
If I were to offer some advice at this point, it would be for developers to ensure that their add-ons are as encapsulated as possible, with clean interfaces into the XenForo code (perhaps even going as far as creating shim functions that simply pass data between the add-on and XenForo, so that those functions can be modified at a later date without interfering with the add-on-specific code). I would hope that this might minimise the pain of transitioning to XenForo 2, but again, at this stage we simply aren't in a position to guarantee anything.
However, if there is anything we can do in terms of documentation, limited alpha/beta testing etc. that will serve to make the XenForo 2 release go as smoothly as possible, we will make every effort to do so. We're not a company that is bound up in bureaucracy, and we're not out to intentionally disadvantage anyone, regardless of circumstances. We will work with the community for our mutual benefit, so we can all take advantage of the advancements that XenForo 2 will bring.
Firstly, we are a long way off needing to think about this issue. Mike and I aren't even in a position to describe the extent of the backward compatibility breaks at this point (although we know that they will be extensive).
Secondly, we are acutely aware of the value of our add-on community, and we will do everything we reasonably can to ensure that developers have as much information as possible about the changes as and when they happen.
If I were to offer some advice at this point, it would be for developers to ensure that their add-ons are as encapsulated as possible, with clean interfaces into the XenForo code (perhaps even going as far as creating shim functions that simply pass data between the add-on and XenForo, so that those functions can be modified at a later date without interfering with the add-on-specific code). I would hope that this might minimise the pain of transitioning to XenForo 2, but again, at this stage we simply aren't in a position to guarantee anything.
However, if there is anything we can do in terms of documentation, limited alpha/beta testing etc. that will serve to make the XenForo 2 release go as smoothly as possible, we will make every effort to do so. We're not a company that is bound up in bureaucracy, and we're not out to intentionally disadvantage anyone, regardless of circumstances. We will work with the community for our mutual benefit, so we can all take advantage of the advancements that XenForo 2 will bring.
The Sandman
Well-known member
We couldn't ask for a better response! Thanks Kier!
Sheldon
Well-known member
I'd say there are about 10 or so developers that should immediately receive consideration for any "early access" that may or may not come. They had previously carried XF from the early very slow 1.1 days up to now. Obviously, only my opinion. I'm sure others could likely gather their 10 or so as well....
Either way, no matter how it is done (unless a completely blind lottery --which in turn wouldn't be very helpful), you are going to have those that just cannot accept they were not selected to partake in the testing.
What would really be unfortunate, is bickering and complaining about anyone not being in causing the XF team to completely shut off access. For the community as a whole, this would not be beneficial.
What I'd like to see... 2.0 BETA released to the public (after the early testing, configuring, etc done by whoever is selected) and no one know if anyone "got in". Oh well. Hopefully it all works out, and benefits us as end-users regardless of the approach taken.
Either way, no matter how it is done (unless a completely blind lottery --which in turn wouldn't be very helpful), you are going to have those that just cannot accept they were not selected to partake in the testing.
What would really be unfortunate, is bickering and complaining about anyone not being in causing the XF team to completely shut off access. For the community as a whole, this would not be beneficial.
What I'd like to see... 2.0 BETA released to the public (after the early testing, configuring, etc done by whoever is selected) and no one know if anyone "got in". Oh well. Hopefully it all works out, and benefits us as end-users regardless of the approach taken.
Daniel Hood
Well-known member
XenForo generally goes from beta 1 to stable within 6 weeks (4 betas, 2 RCs). That is not enough time to re-write products that are thousands of lines of code. Especially on a platform they've never seen before.
akia
Well-known member
Yes normally I'd agree, but look how long the beta was for version 1, I'd imagine version 2 will have a longer beta cycle than normal as well.
The Sandman
Well-known member
Anyhow, it sounds to me like Kier has this covered (when the time comes). We should probably be spending our time running around and liking all of our favorite suggestions for inclusion into XenForo 2.0!
Daniel Hood
Well-known member
Even so, the point isn't for devs and designers to run the software in a development setting. It's time for them to learn the new system/setup and start learning how to work with it. A new framework takes time to learn. Some of us have to learn the system and port multiple projects into the new system. Sure, we can wait till beta and our stuff doesn't have to be ready at the same time as v2. If it's not though, nobody is going to adapt to v2. You think a site that relies heavily on blogs or galleries is going to settle for just forums for a couple months while that addon is being ported?
Based on the experiences last time, I would imagine any "early access" to code would be given to everyone via the customer area and would be more a technical preview of the fundamental changes rather than something to start coding from immediately...
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