This morning, I checked my queues and found a pointer to a new entity based forum, Brain Forum. I haven't had a chance to test it out, yet, so I'm only going by the description. According to that, it's already functional, and there's plans for future expansion. Basically, bfr beat me to it. My first thought was, "Now what do I do?" I'm sure people are going to ask why I'm bothering with Artesian Forum that's barely started when Brain Forum is already working?
The answer is that it's something I need to do. Forums have been my "thing" for most of my Drupal life. While others have come and gone, I've kept at it, kept working towards my dream of having a native Drupal forum solution that can compete with the big boys as well as do things that make it unique to Drupal. Advanced Forum was a good attempt but has fundamental issues that were holding me back. With Artesian, I'm making a clean start and taking my time to do it slowly and carefully and plan it out so I can get to where I want to go with no roadblocks. I have been planning it in my head for a year and am excited to get to work on it. My head is bursting with ideas that I just need to see through. While the project was barely started and then delayed for 6 months due to illness and other personal issues, I'm on the verge of really diving in and making it happen.
I'm not doing Artesian for a client or even really for my own use. My Coulee Region forum, which birthed Advanced Forum, has been a dismal failure because it turns out I'm better at writing forum software than managing a forum. While I'm sure I'll use Artesian, I could live without it. I'm writing it because it is my dream to provide a kick-ass forum for Drupal. This is what I do for the community. This is my thing. And I can't just walk away from that just because someone with more resources came along and beat me to it. If that makes me a hypocrite for duplicating effort after I spent so long fighting against duplication, so be it. I will do my part to ease user confusion by making sure I document well and explain the choices once Artesian is a viable solution. But I need to do Artesian regardless of what anyone else is doing. It's just something I've gotta do.
And what about Advanced Forum? That was my "baby" for four years and I haven't just abandoned it. I have found it solid caretakers in mcdruid (D6) and troky (D7). While I'm still involved in the issue queue, I'm no longer actively coding on it. The new maintainers are doing a fine job of keeping it going and I expect the module to keep going for quite some time yet, possibly even after Artesian is viable. Artesian is based on entities, not on core forum, and is a major design jump. Some people may be happy staying with Advanced Forum. We'll see when the time comes. Either way, there will be data conversion available from Core Forum (which means Advanced Forum as well) to Artesian Forum
So, what should you use?
If you need a solution right now look at Advanced Forum and Brain Forum. Not having used BF, I can't say much about it. I can tell you that AF has issues with large forums both due to performance and due to lack of moderation tools. It works great for small forums, though.
If you're doing long term planning, 6+ months, keep Artesian in mind. I intend to have something usuable (not necessarily in production) by DrupalCon and hope to make use of some of the brilliance there to really kick it into shape. I'd like to have something production ready by Summer but I can't make promises that far out. What I can promise you is that, short of something bad happening to me, I'm not going anywhere. I've been a member of this community since 2005 and working on forums since 2007. This is my passion, not just an assignment, and I will not give up until I give Drupal a forum that I am proud of.
Comments
I love that you are
I love that you are passionate about creating something awesome, it is sometimes good to ditch the old and start over again. You must have learned a whole lot, which is now all put into one project from the start!
Thanks!
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Yes, I've learned quite a bit over the years. Not to say I won't make any mistakes on a second attempt but, at least, I will try not to make the same ones. :)
duplication isn't such a bad thing
Duplication obviously has its disadvantages - fragmentation of effort and user confusion are two which immediately spring to mind.
But duplication has some great advantages:
- competition
- faster development (rather than having to work with an existing project which may have legacy issues)
- complete freedom/control (sometimes consensus can stifle innovation and/or purity of vision)
So basically, I think it is great you are going for it!
Duplication
Well, I can't claim faster development. I'm a pretty slow developer due to only being able to work on this when my young children are otherwise occupied. It looks like the other project has a paying sponsor which tends to make work go faster. No legacy issues, either, since that project is brand new as well. The last one, though, is the kicker for me. While I don't mind having help here and there, I want to be the one really driving the vision and doing things the way I think they should be done. And that's not something I'll have if I tag along with another person's project.
Competition is good...
Don't be ashamed!
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Well, not really "ashamed". More just feeling a bit guilty because I have spoken out against duplication in the past and here I am doing it. But it's an odd situation because I was actually doing it first... the other one just did it faster.
When you say 'compete with
When you say 'compete with the big boys' do you mean the vBulletin and IPB?
It would be so awesome if Drupal could have a real forum like that but I don't see it happening any time soon. these forum apps possible have a bigger codebase than Drupal itself? allthough that is possibly in part due to bad coding practices.
Some features that I really like in vBulletin that I wouldn't mind having in Drupal:
1. Search within a thread widget. (great for getting relevant posts from a 200+ thread)
2. integration with D7 achievements module
3. search within forum widget
4. quote and multiquote posts like in vBulletin
Goals
Well, PHPbb for sure. vBulletin would be nice. Competing against software that has a team of people working on it is tough. I may never be able to match them feature for feature. But my goal is to have a native Drupal forum that can satisfy the needs of those who are now using a bridge because Drupal's offerings aren't enough for them.
I don't want to turn this blog entry into a feature request list so I'm asking that future commenters not go there, but I'll answer the ones already here.
1) Advanced Forum already has that and Artesian will as well.
2) I don't know much about that one but certainly I will be working to be sure that forum-related modules can be used with Artesian.
3) Again, AF already has that and Artesian will, too.
4) I will be making sure Artesian works with the Quote module so the effort should be on making the Quote module fully functional. While I will likely do some minor duplication here and there to simplify the forum, I don't intend to re-invent every forum related wheel. Projects that are doing well on their own make find dependencies.
Michelle
Brain Forum
I understand that Artesian forum is very personal thing to you, but still i find it bit sad that you think that we "beat" you in something. Discussion forum is a very big subject, and can go to so many directions that there is no reason why two or more solutions for Drupal should or could not exists. I dont think this is a race, and originally Brain Forum was not supposed to get released as it's own project, but rather to help you get going with Artesian. You declined help, but it would be shame not to release the code in any form. And since it's released, the only natural way is to develop it further.
I hope these two forums may co-exists in peace, both will develop to great forums and hopefully even help each other grow and get better.
By the way, the lead developer of Brain forum is Rade(http://drupal.org/user/604700), so credits to him, i have been more of a "mentor" or something in the project.
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Well, you/Rade beat me to having a committed, usable module. That's a pretty clear fact so I don't understand why you'd find it sad that I think that? I'm not mad at you about it. Frustrated with myself for getting sick and derailing my own project, yes, but I understand that I don't have any exclusive license to develop a Drupal forum and that people are bound to get tired of waiting for me.
Also, I didn't decline help; in fact, I've been practically begging people to help me with entities for some time. I just am not ready for other people to start coding on the project. I'm still in the process of documenting everything in my head and figuring out the basics. I need to get the foundation in place before I can open things up to other contributors. Had I not gotten sick last May, I would have been in a much better position now but I'm not and so I just need to deal with the effects.
Since I wrote this post, I've had a look at BF's code. While there are a lot of similarities, of course, there are significant differences as well. So the forums will end up being different enough, I think, to validate having two of them.
Well, great to hear that we
Well, great to hear that we kind of agree on everything. We were really hoping that Artesian would have some code by the time we needed it, but since you got sick and all, we just run out of time and needed a solution. I'm pretty sure our forums will take different roads, yours relying more on other conrib modules and Brain Forum more as a stand-alone solution for one. Both have their uses in the Drupal world and can live happily in the same universe.
Code
Unfortunately, every time I tried to work on Artesian, I ended up banging my head against not quite getting Entity API. If I had more help with that, I probably would be as far as Brain is now. It's great that you were willing to mentor him. Had I had that, we likely wouldn't be in this situation.
Ah, well. Can only move forward now.
Well, i'm still happy to
Well, i'm still happy to share my experiences with Entity API and other things if you need it, i'm 100% sure Rade is too(He is not only talented but also very nice and helpful guy), and i'm sure the whole community is. We are on the same side of the battle, and i believe we all go faster if we can pull each other instead of argue or get jealous over things.
So, please, let's just start enjoy each others contributions before things get out of hand for no reason at all. Last thing i want is to have bad feelings with anyone in our fantastic community.
Argue?
It was never my intention to argue. I wrote this because a lot of people know about Artesian and may be wondering about the future now that there's this other forum in the picture. It's not like I came out calling you nasty names for "stealing my idea" or anything ridiculous. I just said that I'm going to go on with my plans despite this new wrinkle and you keep making it sound like I'm being horrible over it. I don't see why things would get out of hand unless you escalate them. This was really a benign post... Sure, I, personally, wasn't thrilled about the new development but I'm not so self centered to think that my feelings are what is important here. The community needs a better forum solution. If you have the resources to do it faster, so be it. All I've been saying is I'm not going to walk away from my dream because of it.
Since you seem to have no objections to helping, I can at least turn this into something positive and look at how you did the the Entity API integration that I've beating my head against every time I've had a chance to work on this in the last 6 months. Getting past that hurdle finally would be nice.
Ok, maybe i misunderstood
Ok, maybe i misunderstood your feelings. No damage done. Feel free to dig into Brain Forum code. The entity part will probably change a bit at some point, since now both threads and posts are their own entities, and they are likely to get bundled under single forum entity. Suggestions are also welcome.
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My feelings are pretty simple: I think it's great that the community has a solution that they can use now since mine is a long way off but I'm now a hypocrite because I've been put in the position of either doing the very thing I fought against for so long or giving up on my dream. I also am struggling with the fact that everyone seems to get entities but me and having the code I have tried and failed so many times to create show up as a project is like salt in a wound. So, on a personal level, this project is hurtful to me. But those are my feelings and no one is responsible for them but me. I don't blame you or your partner. I don't resent that you released the code you created. I am happy the community has something they can use. But, no, I am not personally happy about the project because it makes me feel stupid and makes me a hypocrite for going on with my plans.
I get you, and i was kind of
I get you, and i was kind of trying to get the feeling part over with and move on to the module part. There's not really much i can do to make you feel better, i'm afraid.
Just remember that we are only talking about a drupal module here.
Huh?
If you're trying to get the "feeling part" over with, then why did you bring it up? The only "feeling" the blog post gets into is why I feel the need to keep going with my own project. We didn't get into my hurt feelings until you kept digging at me about why I'm not personally happy about the whole thing.
I'm not expecting you or anyone else to make me feel better. I never even wanted to talk about my feelings in this venue. I vented a little bit on IRC and figured that was the end of it. I'm just not very good at walking away when someone starts poking at me and got dragged into the conversation.
At any rate, there isn't a lot I can do about the module until I get back from my trip. I've had the install file written for quite a while and have a bunch of non-working entity code that I'm probably just missing a clue on. I'm going to take a look at BF and see if I can figure out what's wrong with my code as soon as I get back and will hopefully finally be able to commit all the stuff I've written locally very early in December. I actually have a fair amount done on it but it broke when I switched to using the Entity API and I never was able to get it working again after that. Will be nice to get it fixed and out there in the community.
Actually you brought it up
Actually you brought it up(with this blog post), not me, but anyway, i do want you to feel better. What other reason could i have to comment this post? I just ment that i hope the issue about feelings could be closed and focus on the actual work. And i was only referring to my last post, not the whole discussion.
No...
I just read it again and I didn't say anything about my feelings about BF. The whole post was about why I'm going to keep going. That's it. My feelings were an issue for maybe 5 minutes while I vented on IRC and was re-assured that continuing my plans was ok. Then I wrote this post saying I'm going to keep going and this is why. You're the one that is talking about being sad and bad feelings and that (on the other issue) I don't have a sporty attitude because I said this is good for the community but didn't say it's good for me. Seriously, look again; the negative emotional stuff is coming out of your posts. I deliberately stayed neutral on my thoughts of BF in my blog post and focused on moving forward.
*deep breath*
Anyway, this is getting us no where and I should be getting ready for the trip. I'm going to get off the computer and attempt to stay off of it until all my chores are done.
I'm sure I'll tinker with Artesian while I'm gone but the major coding effort will start in December.
Well then, i stand corrected.
Well then, i stand corrected.
Just impressed
From what I've read you seem to be like an amazingly forward thinking individual with such a hard driven drive to develop that the only thing that would put a stop to it is death itself. I am extremely impressed. I am a beginner with Drupal and am attempting to make a website as a hobby on the side. For something I will be relying on in the future, I'm glad such a person is in charge of it's development (Artesian Forum, and previous work that you did on Advanced Forum even though you are no longer it's chief developer).
Thanks
Yeah, if I die, work will stop. Otherwise... probably not. :)
You're welcome
I am sure every piece of positive feedback helps you to keep focused and moving forward. Thanks again! :)
Yeah, it does
Thanks. :)
Why...
Why not just contribute and help with Brain Forum since they are much farther along instead of wasting hours contributing something that's already production ready and (so far) quite extensive and good?
I know you see it as "I am Michelle, I do drupal forums!", but at some point maybe you should let your ego go and take the responsible route. I guess I just don't understand the overabundance of ego in this post and why you feel it helps anything.
Ego?
Ok, you are totally misreading this post. Ego? Me? If you knew me, you'd realize how ridiculous that is. LOL! I've never claimed to be the only one able to do Drupal forums. I'm the only one that has consistently done it for all these years but that's just a plain fact, not a boast. Others have come in with big talk and then faded away while I just keep plugging along.
I don't consider my work on Artesian to be either wasting hours or irresponsible. Who are you to dictate how I spend my time, anyway? Talk about ego...
Besides that, your point is moot. I've looked at the Brain Forum code; they're not actually that much farther along.
Really...
I concur with Michelle, random internet dude named Zach. Who are you to tell other people how to lead their lives and who are you to tell her what decisions she should make. You can't say "I know you see it as..." because you don't know, you're not actually "Michelle" you're not her brain and you're not her thoughts.
Let her do what she does best, what she enjoys the most, and most of all what she WANTS to do. If it's in the best interest of the community to partake in partnership with Brain Forum then so be it, but apparently it's not. Otherwise she would have done that a long time ago.
Everything has a purpose and I see no need for her to have to explain herself to you, a stranger named Zach : ) Keep on trucking Michelle. Zack: Think before you speak. "I guess I just don't understand..." apparently not.
Thanks :)
While I'm usually very against duplication primarily because of harm to the community, this one is a tricky situation. It's hard to even say who is duplicating whom. Artesian is the elder project but, due to delays, Brain Forum has more working code. That's right now. A month from now, Artesian may have more working code. Hard to say for sure since I don't know what they are doing but I have a burst of coding planned soonish.
Really what he have here is more parallel projects than duplication. Unfortunately, that's splitting hairs from the end user point of view. They are just going to see two forums and wonder which to use. I plan to do my part to ease user confusion with documentation as best I can. At some point I might try making a converter script so people can switch back and forth. We'll see. For now, I just am focused on making the best forum I can.
Michelle