PHPDN Project

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Deemo
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PHPDN Project

Post by Deemo »

Most of you guys here are amazing and PHP. I realize most of you have other commitments, but im just throwing this out there

I think that we should start a PHP project that is open source and that will either improve upon an existing technology, or make something brand new. For example, making our own forum, or wiki, or CMS, etc. I think that the people we have here are among the greatest in the PHP community, and im sure that if we could all collaborate on a project that we could create something that would be as wide-used as phpMyAdmin or phpBB.

The question is, what would we want to develop. Surely there are hundreds of things that we CAN do, but i think it would be most beneficial to create something brand new, yet something useful for everyone.

Im thinking that once we get all the ideas down we can easily get this hosted on sourceforge. I would not mind being the project manager, but im surely not as gifted in PHP as most of you. I will be able to contribute small amounts, but not as much as most of you.

Since time requirements are a big issue, its possible that this may not be a good idea, but i would like to give this a try.

So if you guys could post and say if you are interested, or if you wish to present an idea for this project, i would be very interested in seeing what you guys think

~Deemo
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s.dot
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Post by s.dot »

I think an extension for AIM where you an execute PHP code in the IM window would be pretty sweet.

/twocents
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
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Moocat
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Post by Moocat »

I'd like to see a PHP wiki myself. I find the PHP manual to be helpful, but often not explanatory enough or having missing details and/or errors in code samples. An area with a nice wide open layout for everyone to alter would be nice, plus I like the page design and simplicity :)
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

we had a wiki a while ago, it wasn't used and more over was abused by <span style='color:blue' title='I&#39;m naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span>.. so I dunno on that front... :?
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Wikis are useful for a few things - usually collaboration. Thing is a Wiki makes a crap method of documenting anything. Well, at least from the POV of a simple XML alternative like DocBook. There's also the abuse factor...

A social app of some description? (my imaginations fails - its sucked up in nanowrimo for the next month).
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

Is the Life/Rainforest/Paradigm project still going ahead?

I've not long started to make a Version Control System, as that is the first thing I need if I am to continue developing stuff :) Hoping to be able to release it to the masses when I have got to a reasonably complete stage :)
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

The initial enthusiasm has faded - its down to the hardcore dedicated as to whether it proceeds. It's only been a short while in a developers sense of time since the last burst of activity - I've seen projects apparently dead for months until inspiration struck in a frenzy of coding. ;)

I can sit on my own OS projects for as long - I must still have one or two dormant for over a year waiting for that "frenzy" point.
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Moocat
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Post by Moocat »

Life, Quantum Star SE and Shadows Rising all look promising, I think the last two are built on the same core engine right? Anyhow, there's plenty of projects to pick out, are you suggesting there be a forum topic with a single project to be dedicated to, or just to try and get the people here to coloborate on some new SF project? From what I've seen many of the people here are already involved in one or more projects and most of their time is devoted as such.

Something that I think might be neat would be to have a "Project of the Month" where the members could dissect a single project each month and make suggested improvements (or just make suggestions). How about that? :?:
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

The inevitable argument between the open source and closed source project maintainers would ensue since OS would get all the attention. You can't peer review closed source code very effectively...

Then again, a lot of peeps would have small OS projects somewhere...

QS and SR use the same engine. It's my innovative approach to PHP Games: 1) use OOP, 2) use Patterns, 3) add Security. I'm not sure these simple things have been applied in open source games before - I've searched high and low without seeing it.

It works wonders, some have claimed it even sings - not yet confirmed, Trekkies are not dependable...;) Why let the closed source PHP game profiteers have all the easy toolkits? Its about time some consistency reached the open source PHP game genre - it's been wallowing in procedural land forever (some even have php3 file extensions). If my scrappy roll your own scaffold does the job I'll be able to tackle twice the current number of game projects without worrying about the sad old style cut'n'paste duplication PHP left behind (apparently) long ago.

All I need now is to actually finish something - anything. A year of fence sitting is not good in the fast moving game market - you get left behind by 13 year olds who believe OOP is the devil...;)

Sry, the sarcasm bubble needs popping. Halloween leftovers...

ON TOPIC:

Thoughts of apps:

Something fun: a game (chess is popular, know many php chess apps?)
Something useful: a wiki/docbook converter?
Something serious: Yet Another Forum (but using OOP?)
Something profitable: an opcode cache Zend will pay us to stop developing? ;) j/k

Imagination is still exhausted. 4 hours of non-stop creative writing will do that...
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Moocat
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Post by Moocat »

Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:The inevitable argument between the open source and closed source project maintainers would ensue since OS would get all the attention. You can't peer review closed source code very effectively...
I did not think closed source projects would even be mentioned as an idea to do. I'm pretty sure there's enough OS projects to go around and could keep a project of the month or community project going indefinitely :)
Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:Thoughts of apps:

Something fun: a game (chess is popular, know many php chess apps?)
Something useful: a wiki/docbook converter?
Something serious: Yet Another Forum (but using OOP?)
Something profitable: an opcode cache Zend will pay us to stop developing? ;) j/k

Imagination is still exhausted. 4 hours of non-stop creative writing will do that...
All sound good to me, I'd of course lean toward any type of game :) (Maug, let me post comments in your blog! :p)
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dallasx
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Post by dallasx »

Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:The initial enthusiasm has faded - its down to the hardcore dedicated as to whether it proceeds. It's only been a short while in a developers sense of time since the last burst of activity - I've seen projects apparently dead for months until inspiration struck in a frenzy of coding. ;)

I can sit on my own OS projects for as long - I must still have one or two dormant for over a year waiting for that "frenzy" point.
Sounds like the people need a leader to boost the morale!
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

They need coffee, sugar, and a deadline - and to get paid. Otherwise it's all natural enthusiasm, followed by the reality of the project requirements, followed by the usual open source pattern of development.

It'll be ready when its finished. ;)
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dallasx
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Post by dallasx »

Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:They need coffee, sugar, and a deadline - and to get paid. Otherwise it's all natural enthusiasm, followed by the reality of the project requirements, followed by the usual open source pattern of development.

It'll be ready when its finished. ;)
Natural enthusiasm = Self-Motivation. Getting followers to become self-motivation is one of the keys to being an effective leader.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

Unpaid open source projects takes precedence behind those jobs that pay the bills, and anything that is remotely more interesting.
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Post by programmermatt »

Adding to the ideas for a project is one that I did partial planning for but gave up to be able to give a decent amount of time to my other OS projects, but would be will to help with this.

My idea was to create a PHP application which would interact with CVS (maybe subversion and other source management systems) that would allow standard users to submit code, have it reviewed by other users and then by certain elevated memebers and maybe then the developers, then having it comitted to CVS. The Mozilla foundation has something similar to this, I think, and the code would be signed off by users similar to how code is comitted to the linux kernel, but I am pretty sure that is a manual task. Users would be identified by email for best recognition and there would have to be extensive checking of multiple accounts, even though standard users cannot do more that peer-review something and submit it to the upper levels for confirmation.

Usefull features would be submitting a diff created by cvs to the head branch and then having the application put it into context with changed parts highlighted and such so that the review is easier. Also, a way to submit patches to the reviewed code would probably be benificial, though methods for dealing with that are up for questoin.

Just an idea for something that hasen't really been done before in PHP, the only other application similar to this is CodeStriker, which is rather slow (probably due to interaction with CVS), and not written in PHP.
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