Child boards - just wondering

Started by Auke, July 19, 2014, 08:47:48 PM

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Auke

Just wondering: why are the subdivisions of boards on SMF called 'Child Boards'? Every time I see those words I got the idea these are boards for kids. Wouldn't something like 'Sub Board' be a better option?

Arantor

Because in technical parlance there is a parent-child relationship of nodes. Fully recognised technical term.

Some months ago I put the same thing to the SMF team and then just changed it in 2.1 so it says 'Sub-Boards' there. Lots of 'but SMF has always done it this way'.


Auke

‽:
Thank you for explaining and getting it altered in 2.1. "But we always" is usually not a valid reason in my opinion.

BurkeKnight:
Thank you for the mod I just installed!

Glad to know my question was a valid one.

Cheers both!

Arantor

Oh of course it's not. This is one of my fundamental issues with the team as a whole. Too much rooted in how things have been to be able to even consider where things might be able to go.

Kindred

Honestly, I don't care about the "we always..."


What I care about is the fact that child boards always has been correctly descriptive, IMO.
I understand and have no issue with the change in 2.1, but I disagree with the folks who insist that it had to be done, because - as Arantor pointed out, child-parent IS the correct logical relationship.
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"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Arantor

Because fixing a design to reduce confusion is a bad thing?

Kindred

There have been a few people who were confused, but, most seemed to correctly understand.
As I said, Though, I have no issue with the change.

Although, honestly, I am not certain that sub-board is the correct term either... But I don't have a better option at this point.
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"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Auke

Oh, I do see the relationship. It's just that it looks and sounds really weird if you're (like me) not familiar with the programming world.

Arantor

It's more mathematics than computing, but the point stands.

As for confusing, the best design is the one that confuses least people. The strive for perfection should always factor in the design with the most flexibility with the least confusion. Remember: people don't read help pages as a general rule. If they don't 'get it' without an explanation, something is probably wrong.

Sub-board isn't the right term, but the least-wrong term. There isn't really a definitive correct term for this, though. Mind you, all the other systems use sub- as a prefix, be it for sub-boards, sub-forums or sub-categories for whichever choice and style of taxonomy they prefer.

Kindred

Of course, to turn that around a little bit... "Because that's how the others do it" is just as silly a reason as "that's how we've always done it"

;) :P
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"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Auke

Quote from: ‽ on July 19, 2014, 09:42:27 PM
Mind you, all the other systems use sub- as a prefix, be it for sub-boards, sub-forums or sub-categories for whichever choice and style of taxonomy they prefer.

True. I'm using terms like subfamily, subgenus and subspecies all the time (you know, with the bugs).

Arantor

Quote from: Kindred on July 19, 2014, 09:49:04 PM
Of course, to turn that around a little bit... "Because that's how the others do it" is just as silly a reason as "that's how we've always done it"

;) :P

Oh, if only.

The correct question is not 'do the others do it, should we' but is 'the others do it, WHY do they do it'. What benefit is there to doing it that way versus not doing it that way? Or not doing it at all (for some things)?

You know, like I've been saying for years but frequently ignored?

Kindred

You have not been ignored....  Disagreed with (sometimes frequently) but we can't ignore you... ;)
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"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Arantor

No because I won't let you ignore me. Because someone who understands software has to keep you lot from entirely messing it up. Unknown described it years ago that the SMF team was SMF's biggest enemy. 4 years on, it's no less true.

Kindred

And this is another point on which we disagree....
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"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

LiroyvH

I'll call nonsense on that as well.
The team is doing a great job. Keeps SMF going.
Sure, mistakes have been made. Mistakes have been pointed out. Cool. Let's fix em.
Nobody is perfect. All the team can do is their best. Saying that doing as such makes the team itself SMF's biggest enemy whilst they're pouring tons of their time in to and doing a pretty damn good job (note: that doesn't mean flawless per se.) it is downright disrespectful and uncalled for imho.


There was a time where it was true perhaps. At least, parts of the team.
But now? No way.
((U + C + I)x(10 − S)) / 20xAx1 / (1 − sin(F / 10))
President/CEO of Simple Machines - Server Manager
Please do not PM for support - anything else is usually OK.

Arantor

#17
I keep pointing out mistakes. I do not see signs they are getting fixed. Even though some of them I have been pointing out for months and that could have been fixed months ago.

Only yesterday I had someone on team pointing me to a Github topic that had utterly degenerated into design by committee. And it's a recent one.

Design by committee is one of the problems I've been citing for years, and it's still happening.

That reminds me, it's the time of the month where I stand back and check something. Yup, it's now been 6 months since 2.0.7 first came out and you're still on the first/broken patch. And that's even before I point out 2.0.8 has had a month to be installed here.

And before anyone gives me the 'but it's time consuming' spiel, just remember that last weekend I spent literally all night clearing out a badly infected website. Doing a lot of that by hand, and I STILL did it faster than if I'd hot patched from 2.0.7-broken to 2.0.8 on this site. That was one night.

Patching 2.0.7 to 2.0.8 does not take nearly 12 hours. It shouldn't even taken an hour - even doing it manually due to other concerns.

And you wonder why I'm critical. What makes it worse is that every time I raise these criticisms that seem legitimate to me, I get what feels like a pat on the head and told it's OK. That's not how it was meant but that's how it comes across.

The title of Mr Doom was fully appropriate because I do go doomsaying. The only reason I stopped is because I could see it was wasting my time and energy to repeatedly point out what anyone not in denial could see.


EDIT: Altered point for clarity. The GH issue is in itself a recent one but the degeneration into design by committee is a very long standing problem.

LiroyvH

Quote
I keep pointing out mistakes. I do not see signs they are getting fixed. Even though some of them I have been pointing out for months and that could have been fixed months ago.

That's good. Mistakes should be pointed out when they're made.

Quote
Only yesterday I had someone on team pointing me to a Github topic that had utterly degenerated into design by committee. And it's a recent one. It's one of the problems I've been citing for years, and it's still happening.

Guess some things just aren't going to change.

Quote
That reminds me, it's the time of the month where I stand back and check something. Yup, it's now been 6 months since 2.0.7 first came out and you're still on the first/broken patch. And that's even before I point out 2.0.8 has had a month to be installed here.

Yup.

Quote
And before anyone gives me the 'but it's time consuming' spiel, just remember that last weekend I spent literally all night clearing out a badly infected website. Doing a lot of that by hand, and I STILL did it faster than if I'd hot patched from 2.0.7-broken to 2.0.8 on this site. That was one night.
Patching 2.0.7 to 2.0.8 does not take nearly 12 hours. It shouldn't even taken an hour - even doing it manually due to other concerns.

Good job :)
Yet, quite different.

Quote
And you wonder why I'm critical.

Not really, just wondering why there is a need for so much disrespect and perhaps, dare I say it, humiliation attempts towards the team.
You don't like everything the team is doing. You think that, in your vision, a lot more must be changed. (Not always right tho. :))
You've seen multiple (small and large) mistakes and pointed them out. It's been looked at, it's been discussed: and for some things action was taken.
Not on all things, of course. Not everything was deemed (very) important or was given instant skyhigh priority whilst there's more to do.

Being critical isn't bad. It's good, it can help.
But making remarks like "the SMF team is SMF's enemy" isn't helpful, it's disrespectful. And stuff like that can really be a morale killer whilst it has no reason nor a single purpose at all. Constructive is better than destructive.

Quote
What makes it worse is that every time I raise these criticisms that seem legitimate to me, I get what feels like a pat on the head and told it's OK. That's not how it was meant but that's how it comes across.

Well you do seem to recognize that's not how it was meant, I think that is most important.

Quote
The title of Mr Doom was fully appropriate because I do go doomsaying. The only reason I stopped is because I could see it was wasting my time and energy to repeatedly point out what anyone not in denial could see.

Well that is sort of a problem.
Repeating it surely doesn't make a problem go away instantly and perhaps may not even speed it up.
... That doesn't mean it isn't taken in to account or looked at. It simply means it wasn't solved in the timely manner you had hoped for.
((U + C + I)x(10 − S)) / 20xAx1 / (1 − sin(F / 10))
President/CEO of Simple Machines - Server Manager
Please do not PM for support - anything else is usually OK.

Arantor

QuoteYet, quite different.

Considering I did a patch from 2.0.7 to 2.0.8 as part of that job, it really isn't.

QuoteNot really, just wondering why there is a need for so much disrespect and perhaps, dare I say it, humiliation attempts towards the team.

I have exhausted all other options. But I can't let it go without a fight.

I don't care about the team (I do care about specific people on the team, and the members as people, but certainly not as a disorganisation). I care about the software and its reputation for being good at what it does. In spite of the lack of care from the team towards it, at least as far as I'm concerned.

I guess it never occurred to the team that if everyone pitched in with testing patches, there would be less support issues after release, which benefits everyone?

Only in the last day or so I was greatly amused by the notions of demarcation, because apparently the help tooltips in the software are not considered documentation and therefore not the responsibility of the documentation team, despite being the first port of call for admins, even before going to the wiki.

Or indeed, people from other teams helping out. Time was when everyone worked together and got on, rather than 'this is my job, I'm sticking to it' which is where things seem to be.

I guess no-one ever realised why I ran around and did so many things. It was because I wanted to pitch in and help, especially since every area affects every other area.

QuoteYou don't like everything the team is doing. You think that, in your vision, a lot more must be changed.

And you don't? You honestly think that the way things are is the best it can be?

QuoteYou've seen multiple (small) mistakes and pointed them out. It's been looked at, it's been discussed: and for some things action was taken.

Developers routinely committing stuff without any kind of testing is not a small mistake. Having a team that routinely fails to test patches before release is not a small mistake. 30-40 posts of discussion on presentation of a semi-standard component is not really a small mistake.

The sad part is that it required two consecutive bad patches to point out that change was needed.

QuoteBut making remarks like "the SMF team is SMF's enemy" isn't helpful, it's disrespectful. And stuff like that can really be a morale killer whilst it has no reason nor a single purpose at all. Constructive is better than destructive.

I tried being constructive. God knows I tried being constructive. I'll even give praise where praise is due. But when the most constructive thing ends up being "screw you, I'm doing it anyway", there really is a problem.

QuoteRepeating it surely doesn't make a problem go away instantly and perhaps may not even speed it up.
... That doesn't mean it isn't taken in to account or looked at. It simply means it wasn't solved in the timely manner you had hoped for.

Seriously.

You guys can't even get your own website patched in six months and you seem to think this is acceptable or 'timely'.

I don't even... what...?

Repeating it doesn't make it go away but it does make sure people are aware of it, and it might start to shake the denial out of the place. Because if I'm repeating it, I still believe it's a problem that needs addressing.

I recognise that change takes time, even when I'm the one making changes. But to make change, one has to accept that change is even needed, not live in denial. It shouldn't take multiple failed patches to ensure there is a proper procedure in place.

Heck, even having a policy of 'nobody can merge their own commits' would help. It might not help those who don't bother to look at commits and just merge, but baby steps. Then you can start introducing peer review. Or indeed any kind of review whatsoever.

I'm still waiting to hear about 2.0.9 to be honest. It's been a month since I reported that vulnerability and despite some assertions of it being a silly issue (and that it is legitimately fixed, albeit with side effects, in 2.1) the fact that there is a vulnerability of that nature in 2.0 should be dealt with as a matter of priority.

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