Forum Moderators: coopster
And because I'm silly enough to think I can streamline the author's code and because I want certain functionality - I usually veer pretty far off whatever modularity the author had intended. On occassion I do actually stick to their plan and produce something useful but that's the exception. Primarily because I'm experimenting and most of what I create is trash.
The end result of my messing around is that I end up with an application that works pretty much like I wanted it to and which I have learned front-to-back because I have handled each piece of code. My super-duper version usually has some fundamental changes that would make it nigh on impossible to use a community provided upgrade - I rarely document my modifications.
So when the community puts out a new version of the application I usually ignore it and keep what I've got. That nagging feeling of missing something usually strikes me after I've visited the community forum and realize the latest release is 2 versions ahead of mine.
So I got to thinking...I can't be the only one who does this.
So I installed the upgrade, which brought down the site, which lead to reinstalling the old version which is how it is at this moment.
Lesson learned.
That said, from the headline, I thought you were talking about php, Apache, mysql and so on. The answer there is sometimes yes and sometimes no, but that's a different deal because I'm not mucking around with the Apache code (to say the least!)
Tom
by saving a copy of the original source, then uploading it to another directory, you can run a shell program to make a patch of what modifications you have made
try to apply the patch to the new version, it usually works after a little tinkering
I am a bit of a hack - it has helped me really get to grips with PHP code. As you say lorax, you get to understanding every element of the script. Every function, every twist, every turn. The end result is, eventually, you are able to apply elements into your own scripts.
And I don't go much on latest builds either. I go for what I feel comfortable with. I am several updates behind on PHPBB2, but it doesn't bother me, because I am happy with what I am using.
Some may want to keep up-to-date. Some may want the latest builds. But some of us are happy picking up a script, and playing with it to our hearts content.
Thats the beauty to me of open-source code. It's helped me better understand PHP and MySQL. It's free and educational as well... I don't go in expecting to better the original authors code. Thats naive. I go in to get a better UNDERSTANDING of the code the author wrote.
Thats PHP. Always learning. And I enjoy that.
I think phpbb is great and I think it's really cool how they made it able to please so many people with so many options, but all those options make it a hefty script. For example, i've competely removed their template system. It took a ungodly amount of time, but since I created a custom board I had no need for templates. I then removed the language folder. My website is for a community in US, I don't need the ability to swap between languages. I already have a good faq section on my website so I added the phpbb faq info into that. I got rid of pm's, groups and I even removed the admin section. I do all my db changes manually. So now i'm just left with a shell of what phpbb used to be.
It took me so long to do all this I can't imagine ever switching to a completely new board. Which does kind of suck in a way :(
