Topic: Looking for someone to create/modify software for this forum [5500+ BTC] - page 19. (Read 165632 times)

Heya,

At the risk of looking like newbie that should just mind your own business I'd happily assist extending a vBulletin install to meet your additional requirements free of charge and for the good of this community. vB itself is ~$800 and is scalable and secure. I personally don't think a custom forum software is really worthwhile nor more secure.

Just my 2c,

Stu

Just to let you guys know that although not concerned about getting the contract (and I understand the reservations about my system) I have made some progress creating a "forum package" for my software system (which of course has *zero* manual code).

Although far from complete it handles ordering latest post topics first (after sticky topics which are also in latest post ordering) and allows for topics to be locked and moved. Child boards work correctly with stats totals updating to parents.

http://www.ciyam.com/forum7.png


Cheers,

Ian.

Status:

Of the bids that have been formally submitted, I'm only considering Request's seriously at this point. If you think I didn't give your bid a fair chance (especially if I don't mention you below), PM me with more details.

- nhodges: I sent you a PM requesting more details but didn't get a response as far as I know.
- Red Emerald's work sounds promising, but he hasn't given me enough detail yet.
- Matthew N. Wright hasn't sent me a bid yet.
- BinoX hasn't sent me a bid yet
- danieldaniel isn't qualified.
- I'm uncomfortable with using CIYAM Pty. Ltd.'s experimental (in my mind) code-generating software for something where security and performance are important.
- windowsdefender probably isn't qualified.
- Maybe Xenland or FlipPro could do it, but I don't feel confident enough to give either of them the job.

There's now 1700+ BTC in the forum fund, and I'm still accepting bids.

I've been too busy (and unmotivated) to do any coding, though I've been thinking about the design a lot. I think it would work well to put all of the business logic into the database. PostgreSQL allows you to create new database functions using any of several languages (including C++, PHP, Perl, and Python). This design would be very modular, easy to extend, and easy to break into parts for many people to work on. Making many different front-ends would also be easy, and the front-ends could be "stupid", working only with views covered by many triggers/rules. I'm not a very experienced programmer, though -- what do guys you think of this design?


Bitcoin uses C++. Hopefully Bitcoin is secure...

I don't find security to be very difficult on either. You do need to know what you're doing, but this is a prerequisite to winning this bid anyway.

Seems a lot of people on the forum know very little about *modern* C++.

I have not had a buffer overflow (or even a memory leak) in my code for years.

Have you considered MyBB? Imo it is the best forum software.

That's why I proposed a RAD tool. Don't write all the SQL queries. Let the tool handle it. Ok, the recursive forums have to be taken care of. Just put a parent_id in any forum, so it could become a subforum.

I have similar models here, if you want any help...

Then write it.

I don't think people appreciate how complex forum software is.  I've been working on it for a few weeks (still have to actually put a bid in), and it is not at all easy or simple.

The forum has categories which have boards which can have any number of child boards. All the boards have topics which can also be polls and all of those have posts.  The SQL for loading all of that is difficult enough and that's without any sort of permissions system.  Then theres also all of the stats collecting and personal messages to code, too.

Really, SMF 2.0 + some mods will solve your problems.

Have you considered PHPBB ?

You want PHP? So I would try to generate as much code as possible and use a RAD tool like CakePHP.

Determine what the user should/could do here in this forum and create a nice use case diagram.

Do the next step from there and create a data model. I would recommend ArgoUML with the data modeling profile, since it freely availabe and everyone could download and contribute.

Generate sql from the model (I've to admit here, that the available db modules are a bit dated and might have to be modified, but that shouldn't pose a big issue, since everything is Opensource and pretty straightforward).

Once the sql is there, create a database and feed the mysql into it to get a running database.

Install Cake and point it to the existing database and let in create model, controller and views for each table.

Maybe we(as in community) can use this forum I created http://pipboy3000.com/social and I'll release the forums source-code on Github and we can all contribute and then the funds will be distributed based on the most code contributed?

Its code is very very early but its already well commented and isn't complex it should be easy to contribute upon with little effort.

I think we can all come together and agree on how payments will work as far as contributions go, I was thinking for code distribution to be completely fair I would get paid at a fixed rate of 10% of the total payout that would also mean no matter how much code I contributed I would get paid no more or no less. The incentive for me to contribute greatly to the project will be of course the 10% as well as the success of the forums software which would also increase security, functionality and useably for my projects that will incorporate this forum software and also I would like to see a secure forum and done correctly for once.

Everything is negotiable, its just a thought. pm me for more details to reduce spam on this thread thanks!

I think that as many, many, many forum admins have done time and time again... You've just reinvented the functionality request of the uucp era internet, except with JavaScript instead of curses... Besides, everyone's good loot is in their browser, not their shell anymore. NNTP is great.

The daemons have handled a lot of abuse, and continue to. I believe someone created an "alt.bitcoin.test" already. The protocol is purely peer to peer, prima facie.

Hashcash to pull subjects and get content, coin or barter to post and be heard beyond your direct peers. Minimal cost for recycling of large chunks of previously delivered recent text along the path (quotes). The idea of focusing on HTTP is kinda silly, otherwise we might as well call it Layer 8. The should be the focus of a good protocol, not the display (imho).

I do understand the value of system design and documentation - in fact when I release my software platform you might be rather surprised to see that in fact that what you look at and edit with is basically a design document (source code for apps is 100% generated from a sophisticated model that includes specifications that describe in an "intentional" manner all objects and functions of the software).

You might want to read up about what Charles Simonyi has been working on for at least the last 10 years to understand the kind of paradigm shift in software engineering I am talking about.


Cheers,

Ian.

I'm still looking through the submitted bids (a lot of material was sent to me privately, and I've been busy). I'll continue to accept bids until I've put a significant amount of time into writing the forum core in anticipation of that alternative development method I mentioned. To be safe, anyone interested in doing the whole job should send me at least a basic bid ASAP.

By the way - this seems VERY reasonable for me, and it probably would end up better than placing it all in one hands.

What's the status of this? Does anyone actually code something, or are we still waiting for theymos to pick an offer? If yes - is there still time for placing offers?

Well said. I'm not putting in my bid until basic unit tests and documentation are ready.

I know that this is getting off-topic, but this really bugs me. Software engineering is more than just writing and debugging code, you need to be able to design systems and document them too. Programming is the easy bit, design and documentation are IMO much harder problems, and if you aren't documenting then you're missing out on valuable experience in your journey as a developer.

Comments can only go out of date if you describe what the software is doing, which isn't the way to write comments. Good inline comments describe the whys and don't go out of date when the how changes, this is exactly what makes them a difficult ordeal because as codemonkeys we're used to dealing with hows without really pondering the whys. Good function comments describe the interface rather than the implementation, if they go out of date then you can almost guarantee that you've introduced bugs because you've broken your interface.

I don't even claim to be good at it myself, but I do practice and try to improve.

Yes - I learned this the hard way by embarrassing myself in front of a *guru* in my first full time programming position by making an assumption about what the code did from an out of date comment.

He was at least kind enough to set me straight - "Ian don't forget that the compiler can't understand the comments". From that day on I learned to "read code" and became a much better programmer because of it.


Cheers,

Ian.

Don't feel bad I never write comments either 
I do as you said and just read the code