As most of you know, this site started out as a hobby of mine.
I made many tweaks, changes, "enhancements" and what have you to the core code. That is not bad, that is a good thing. What is bad, I did not document my changes, which is a supreme fail for any programmer. I figured "I break it, no biggie, I upload the core again and start again". It was fun.
I think now if I were to just wipe it all away, some of you might be upset. I know if I was you, I would be. One of the things I aim for is providing a stable platform/media for those who choose to use it.
The CMS core developers have been long at work improving security, response time, modules, etc in the "dark" (for lack of better term). They've released a "silent" update, while working on a publicly known major release.
Software typically is released in minor and major releases. 1.0 to 1.1 is minor, 1.1 to 2.0 is major.
We're on 9.2, but they're working on 10.0 currently. The latest core is 9.3.
I'm going to set up a mirror site using that core and gradually prepare it for upgrading to 10.0 when it's released.
Why might you care?As has been one of my goals is to keep members informed of the sites direction as much as I possibly can. Also, this is a
warning, I will make mistakes and I will screw something up. That's inevitable. BUT, if you navigate to a page and it fails or you hit PH.com and it fails ... it's just me screwing something up and rest assured, it's being worked on.
This also means I've decided to stick with PHP front end with MySQL as the backend instead of ASP/MVC with SQL Server. Reason is, there's just too many positives to what we've got here already to re-invent the wheel. Instead, I'm going to systematically force myself to learn PHP more efficiently.
A complete site rebuild is necessary to procure new features into the site effectively. My first goal is develop a method of creating and maintain code level changes and effects.
Some might remember the NFL Picks feature that was worked on. It was completed, but not to my satisfactory because of the lack of knowledge of other changes that I wanted to incorporate.
I want to build new features, but it's hard when you don't know what you're breaking. With documentation of the changes, new features will be more likely to be added and implemented properly.
A few things I want?I'd like to be able to "Like" or "Dislike" posts (sorta like Facebook)
Add sarcasm tags on single click.
Incorporate NFL Picks
Single tier quoting
Enhance search (Search for "by Jason Wilde", or tag [OFFICAL])
Those are just examples, I have a few more, but I can't do anything with them until the site is rebuilt, intelligently.
There shouldn't be many changes noticeable in the immediate feature, but if you have other ideas, please, post them with detail.