Community At long last, we're finally back

[CappenVarra]

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Without having to read the whole article, why didn't you make a test version of the site instead of updating the live site as you go and having no front page for like a month and a half?

 

[mondblut]

Yay.

So when is Tacticular Cancer joining?

 

[Melcar]

Finally.

 

[pipka]

........................,,-~*~,,
 
......................./:.:.:.:.:.|
 
......................|;.;.;.;.;./
 
......................|.;.;.;.;.|
 
............._,,,,,_.).;.;.;.;.|
 
.........,,-":.:.:.:."~-,;.;.;.|
 
........(_,,,,---,,_:.:.);.;.;..",,
 
......,-":.:.:.:.:.""-,,/;.;.;.;.;.",
 
.....:).__,,,,,,,,,___);.;.;.;.;.;|
 
...../"":.:.:.:.:.:.:¯""\;.;.;.;.;.,"
 
....\",__,,,,,,,,,,,__/;;;;;;;;;/\
 
.....\.::.:.:.:.:.:.:.;.);;;;;;;;;/:\
 
.......\,,,,,---~~~~;;;;;;;;,"::::\
 
.........."""~~--,,,,,,,,,,-"::::::::::\
 
...................\::::::::::::::::::::::\

<- this is giving me a queer vibe...

 

[SlavemasterT]

You're a true-blue, DU, thanks for all the work

 

[Angthoron]

Sweet, great job you guys!

 

[Forest Dweller]

Well, this is interesting. I used to use front page all the time, and was looking forward to getting it back, but by now I've gotten used to the "forum home page," what with Alerts, Watched Threads, and What's New (though that last also featured in the old Codex, I just never used it). The only thing the front page has now that's over all of that is the ability to sort threads by forum type. If that functionality could be added into What's New...

Oh, I'd also like to point out that I agree that the red fonts are gay.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Sweet, nice writeup. But another voice about how the red titles against the blue backgrounds doesn't quite work.

 

[Akasen]

I would totally buy the novelization of DarkUnderlords struggle to update the forums. Totally should call it "Mein Kampf". Although, some would argue that is the title of the book referring to a collective of stories all Codexers have against scum like Betheduh, Bioware, and even the Codexian Community itself.

 

[Silellak]

Thanks for all the hard work, DU!

 

[tarkin]

Cool story bro!

Seriously, DU should write more editorials.

 

[Azalin]

 

[toro]

Finally ...

 

[EG]

Madness.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Without having to read the whole article, why didn't you make a test version of the site

I did. I've had a test version of the Codex in various states for the last 6 months or more sitting on my localhost. I just thought I could finish it off (which was mostly finish the tag system and build a bunch of converters) quicker than I actually did. And spending two weeks styling the forums affected the time I had to get it done.

So when is Tacticular Cancer joining?

Yes.

 

[Spectacle]

I just thought I could finish it off quicker than I actually did.

Pretty much the story of every software project, ever.

 

[thesheeep]

Hooray for all the work you have done, DU.

But I really have to ask.. how can one not get OO programming? There is a class, which has functionality that belongs to its "nature" (a soldier may attack() and have the getWeapon() function, etc.).
It really is easy as that... and now there are possibly dozens and hundreds of classes that work together.

In my experience, OO makes it somehow harder to grasp the big picture of how everything works together. BUT in most cases you don't need to know it all at once and can start learning that part, then that part, etc. Until you finally have the big picture in your head. May be overkill for small (very small) projects, must-have for big ones... or else you'll have to re--write stuff completely, as DU just stated.

In procedural programming, you start at the start, read to end and forget what was at the start again. And good luck trying to find out little details. Good for small projects, sucks for big ones. have a look at ffmpeg/libav if you want to see procedural madness. Certainly made me mad several times, heh. Damn Linux freaks

But of course some projects are simply "too much" OO, so that it becomes pretty hard to impossible to grasp what the f*ck is going on without proper guidance & documentation.
Maybe this was/is the case with XF.

 

[nihil]

Cool! Nice work. Now we should get to writing reviews, earn a spot on Metacritic, and change the face of gaming journalism!

 

[DarkUnderlord]

But I really have to ask.. how can one not get OO programming? There is a class, which has functionality that belongs to its "nature" (a soldier may attack() and have the getWeapon() function, etc.).
It really is easy as that... and now there are possibly dozens and hundreds of classes that work together.

Getting the "concept" of OO has never been the hard part. The hard part for me is first understanding the syntax, then trying to work out what I actually want to do and how to do it. And then trying to find that in one of 2,661 Files across 528 Folders, most of which are called things like "ControllerPublic" and are full of:

	/**
	 * Shows a preview of the thread creation.
	 *
	 * @return XenForo_ControllerResponse_Abstract
	 */
	public function actionCreateThreadPreview()
	{
		$this->_assertPostOnly();

		$forumId = $this->_input->filterSingle('node_id', XenForo_Input::UINT);
		$forumName = $this->_input->filterSingle('node_name', XenForo_Input::STRING);

		$ftpHelper = $this->getHelper('ForumThreadPost');
		$forum = $ftpHelper->assertForumValidAndViewable($forumId ? $forumId : $forumName);

		$forumId = $forum['node_id'];

		$this->_assertCanPostThreadInForum($forum);

		$message = $this->getHelper('Editor')->getMessageText('message', $this->_input);
		$message = XenForo_Helper_String::autoLinkBbCode($message);

		$viewParams = array(
			'forum' => $forum,
			'message' => $message
		);

		return $this->responseView('XenForo_ViewPublic_Thread_CreatePreview', 'thread_create_preview', $viewParams);
	}

What does responseView do and how do I use it? It appears in 103 files (and isn't in the file this piece of code is) - Which one do I want? "XenForo_ViewPublic_Thread_CreatePreview" is some parameter being passed to it, which itself is easily enough found (there are only two of them and the one in 'CreatePreview.php' seems likely) but then that has:

class XenForo_ViewPublic_Thread_CreatePreview extends XenForo_ViewPublic_Base
{
	public function renderHtml()
	{
		$bbCodeParser = new XenForo_BbCode_Parser(XenForo_BbCode_Formatter_Base::create('Base', array('view' => $this)));
		$this->_params['messageParsed'] = new XenForo_BbCode_TextWrapper($this->_params['message'], $bbCodeParser);
	}
}

This is literally the only thing in that file (and there are hundreds of files where literally, there are empty _constructs or just one function with a few lines of code). This is easy enough to understand what it's doing (parsing bbcode) but how is it even being called? Obviously through responseView... but where was that again?

So I've found the function that previews a thread but how do I pass my variables to it and what object am I passing those variables to?

This is probably fairly basic shit to someone who's been coding PHP in an OO manner but I'm just not at that level of PHP coding to "get" what the hell is actually going on here and I'd often get lost in loops looking for that thing that started it all but finding files that called other files that seemed to call other files that had things like this in them:

public function __construct(Zend_Controller_Request_Http $request, Zend_Controller_Response_Http $response, XenForo_RouteMatch $routeMatch)
	{
		$this->_request = $request;
		$this->_response = $response;
		$this->_routeMatch = $routeMatch;
		$this->_input = new XenForo_Input($this->_request);
	}

I'm sure this is all great code and useful in some way but I have no idea how to actually /use/ any of it. In the end, it was a choice between simply going with what I knew and getting it done, or spending another year learning the ins and outs of OOP in PHP.

 

[Spectacle]

Seems like a marvelous pile of spaghetti code!
What IDE are you using? a good one can really help with this kind of code.

 

[Jaesun]

earn a spot on Metacritic, and change the face of gaming journalism!

LOL that would be fucking hilarious if it were possible. Metecritic unfortunately "decides" which sites recieve money to write favorible reviews for cash sites it considers Professional Gaming Journalism ™. Just for a huge laugh, read their list. It's pure comedy gold.

 

[Cynic]

Props to DU, you rebooted and didn't go full retard

 

[RK47]

Fight the good fight, DU.

 

[snoek]

You've shown some real persistence DU.. the codex is truly proud of you