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SMF 2.1 Beta 3 Released

Started by Colin, May 31, 2017, 09:21:59 PM

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d3vcho

It's normal to have different opinions and proposals while developing open source software. Developers are open to discuss that kind of things, and it's their choice to do one thing or another.
"Greeting Death as an old friend, they departed this life as equals"

Arantor

Sure, but doing it this late into the project seems like a bad idea especially as it has caused at least one major bug that should not go out in an official release.

d3vcho

Sesquipedalian wants to change the pace of the releases once we release RC1 so, we can't really tell what is he going to do. It's up to him. We can't keep doing the same things that haven't been working for years.
"Greeting Death as an old friend, they departed this life as equals"

Arantor

Agreed, but again: changing a major system (especially a security related one!) just before a release is a bad idea, especially when it's clear not enough testing was done.

If only there were a way to write tests for things so that you could check it didn't break when doing refactoring.

Note: I'm not criticising what was done. I'm criticising the fact it was done this close to RC. The whole point of an RC is to have "what we think is a stable product" not "something that is really another beta under a different name". Ironically, see 2.0 RC1 for exactly the same thing.

Gwenwyfar

"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

d3vcho

I'm sure Sesquipedalian knows what's best to do. Anyway, if you have further thoughts I gently invite you to post them on GitHub so they can be reviewed properly. We appreciate that ;)
"Greeting Death as an old friend, they departed this life as equals"

Arantor

The rewrite to board access, cause of https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/issues/5265 and related issues. You know, that thing that SMF has had forever albeit in an ugly form, but was *stable*.

Did it need a rewrite? Sure. Doing it in the weeks before the first release that "isn't beta"? Not a good idea.

Would I post them on GitHub? No, because the damage has already been done by not saying no to such contributions *at this time*. I don't have time to review every commit and warn about ones that are a bad idea because need more testing, because just before an RC is the wrong time to be doing it.

The fact I even have to explain this notion indicates to me that there is no point trying to fix anything.

Gwenwyfar

I must have missed that, I don't know which PR is it. I'll forward it to our RC1 discussions though so the devs don't miss it :)
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Arantor

Seems the bulk of it was done in 4727, further back than I thought, but still... something like that needed some serious testing and planning.

albertlast

Well i'm suprised that you notice on the one hand that this was a deep change,
on the other hand you got problem because >one< issue raised up out of this.

And this one issue got fixed months ago,
so everything is fine with this change.

Arantor

Other than the bug that's open on GitHub right now, you mean?

SD-X

Quote from: Arantor on December 25, 2018, 10:09:22 AM
Other than the bug that's open on GitHub right now, you mean?
It appears that they closed it not long after you brought it up. Hopefully it is resolved now, although I have no idea. I didn't look heavily into it, but I updated my forum to the latest repo files a few days ago and didn't encounter this issue myself.


As for the discussion at hand, the files were originally being referenced as Beta 4. If changing a major system is necessary and it affects versioning that bad, I don't understand why they wouldn't just rename RC1 to Beta 4 again, change RC2 and Final to RC1 and RC2 respectively, and add another Final. That seems like it would fix it. (It seems odd to me anyway that Final would be a version which contains open bugs that need fixing). That's just me, though. I'm sure there is a reason for everything being done, and I'm definitely not trying to criticize it. I appreciate all the hard work you guys are doing greatly.


On a side note, no one has been asking when it will be released lately. Guess that means no more extra delays? ;D

Arantor

Note that the changes in question were only merged in today to fix the issue I pointed out, but this kind of thing sits badly with me - if you're going to revamp a key system, one that is inherently security related, it needs as much testing as you can throw at it, and the issue raised makes it seem like the major change had little or no testing, which is bad for everyone.

Also, 2.0 had a lot of known bugs in it when it was released and plenty of which have never been fixed since.

Mind you, I'm a bit salty because I was always taught that an RC is 'something you believe to be final' and I'd love to avoid having 5 RCs again.

SD-X

Quote from: Arantor on December 25, 2018, 07:32:06 PM
Note that the changes in question were only merged in today to fix the issue I pointed out, but this kind of thing sits badly with me - if you're going to revamp a key system, one that is inherently security related, it needs as much testing as you can throw at it, and the issue raised makes it seem like the major change had little or no testing, which is bad for everyone.
Yikes. Hopefully that is the last we see of that bug then, (or any related ones).

Quote from: Arantor on December 25, 2018, 07:32:06 PM
Also, 2.0 had a lot of known bugs in it when it was released and plenty of which have never been fixed since.
I believe that lol. I've come across some weird stuff over the years with 2.0, such as having too many membergroups attached to a board permission causing it to break the database and not want to properly save things.

Quote from: Arantor on December 25, 2018, 07:32:06 PM
Mind you, I'm a bit salty because I was always taught that an RC is 'something you believe to be final' and I'd love to avoid having 5 RCs again.
Makes sense. RC does stand for Release Candidate I believe, so I can see where you are coming from.

Gwenwyfar

#274
QuoteMind you, I'm a bit salty because I was always taught that an RC is 'something you believe to be final' and I'd love to avoid having 5 RCs again.
It is more like a "RC means no more large changes and few or no major bugs" as I understand it. Maybe the name is wrong for that end, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and that line is RC. I may not agree with all the details of the process, but it makes sense.

QuoteAlso, 2.0 had a lot of known bugs in it when it was released and plenty of which have never been fixed since.
Now, this is something I'm more bothered about... I'd expect a software's patches to fix things, and it still completely stumps me that we won't even fix some small bugs or even do small language edits. For whatever was supposed to be the "reason". Hopefully something that will change.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

GigaWatt

I've seen up to 15 RCs on some products. Not that I'm pro that, it's just that it has been seen before... though on PC software.
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

Arantor

So have I, just the very term "release candidate" implies "could be a viable release" to me...

Still, we found some things, some of them were already in progress, some of them are being tackled. You all know I'm sour, bitter, jaded etc, but I'm really impressed with what has happened only since last night. So much positive energy right now, so I'll try to be more positive too.

Gwenwyfar

Maybe it would match that if it were alpha/beta/RC?

:)
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

SD-X

Quote from: Arantor on December 26, 2018, 04:39:50 AM
You all know I'm sour, bitter, jaded etc, but I'm really impressed with what has happened only since last night. So much positive energy right now, so I'll try to be more positive too.
That's the spirit! ;D

OCJ

One thing about SMF that stands out on support forums - they talk a lot more about doing something than actually doing it. Wonder how many MB of Dev chit chat there are about 2.1 releases - if only it was code. Makes you wonder how much chit chat each line of software code represents.

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