To all people writing BBS on Rails: let's join forces

I've noticed lately that there are at least four different projects
starting to build Bulletin Board System (a forum) on Rails.

Why couldn't we build one BBS, four times bigger and better instead? So
that we can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have something
much better than (for argument's sake) phpBB!

I would like to invite anyone itching to build a BBS to participate in
my project (http://www.rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-forum).
I would also like to join any project that is closer to production grade
(Ruby Forum is already "demonstrable", and 10-20 evenings away from
"barely useable for real life purposes").

One condition - it has to be a Rails app.

Best regards,
Alexey Verkhovsky

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

I've noticed lately that there are at least four different projects
starting to build Bulletin Board System (a forum) on Rails.

Why couldn't we build one BBS, four times bigger and better instead? So
that we can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have something
much better than (for argument's sake) phpBB!

I would like to invite anyone itching to build a BBS to participate in
my project (http://www.rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-forum\). I would also like to join any project that is closer to production grade
(Ruby Forum is already "demonstrable", and 10-20 evenings away from
"barely useable for real life purposes").

One condition - it has to be a Rails app.

Best regards,
Alexey Verkhovsky

i am a ruby novice/noobie,

i think its a great idea, these free web applications that everyone needs (forums/boards, guestbooks, simple polls, blogs, cmss) is what may spread ruby further into the minds of the desinformed

what happens if the best wiki engine on earth is written in ruby? what happens if the best free bulletin board on earth is written in ruby? what happens if the best cms on earth is written in ruby? (all os, gpl or at least bsd style)

i think this might push ruby a lot.
so joined forces is a great idea!

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

I've noticed lately that there are at least four different projects
starting to build Bulletin Board System (a forum) on Rails.

Why couldn't we build one BBS, four times bigger and better instead? So
that we can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have something
much better than (for argument's sake) phpBB!

I would like to invite anyone itching to build a BBS to participate in
my project (http://www.rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-forum\). I would also like to join any project that is closer to production grade
(Ruby Forum is already "demonstrable", and 10-20 evenings away from
"barely useable for real life purposes").

Hello,

I'm one of the people who are building a forum with Rails.

What I have at the moment is:

At the model level:
* Tree structure with nested set (mainly for the NNTP References header)
* Creating new topics, replying to posts
* Voting for posts
* Topic subscriptions (to receive notifications of new posts)
* User registration/login
* prepared for NNTP server integration (Message-IDs, NNTP-IDs, References header)
* Unit tests for most of the functions
* A working NNTP server with reading, posting and user authentication (written for an experimental forum I had built a few months ago, not yet adapted to the new data structure)

Controller/View:
* Forum list
* Topic list
* Topic view (flat)
* Posting replies
* Registration/Login
* Colored quoting levels
* Anonymous posting

The post text is wrapped to ~72 character lines when it is posted and by default displayed in a <pre>, so that it is possible to include indented source code and ASCII-schematics. "> " is used for quotings, like in mails/usenet. Because the line wrapping is done with format=flowed, it is easy to remove the line wrapping for users who want a view like normal HTML pages; the quoting level is preserved and represented by colored lines at the left border (like in Mozilla).

What I (and most of the users) do NOT want is:
* BB-Code or HTML
* User icons
* Smilies
* Everything else phpBB has

What is still missing:
* Controller & Views for most of the stuff mentioned above
* Functional tests
* File Attachments
* NNTP server integration
* a lot more, don't get fooled by the long feature lists above

When I am writing "the users" I am referring to the users of my forum on http://www.mikrocontroller.net/forum/\.

The license will probably be GPL or BSD or something like that.

Andreas

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

I've noticed lately that there are at least four different projects
starting to build Bulletin Board System (a forum) on Rails.

Why couldn't we build one BBS, four times bigger and better instead? So
that we can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have something
much better than (for argument's sake) phpBB!

I would like to invite anyone itching to build a BBS to participate in
my project (http://www.rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-forum\). I would also like to join any project that is closer to production grade
(Ruby Forum is already "demonstrable", and 10-20 evenings away from
"barely useable for real life purposes").

One condition - it has to be a Rails app.

Best regards,
Alexey Verkhovsky

No thanks, I'm writing one in a framework without rails. The main developer is reluctant to help package it for RPA.

David Ross

As a result of this proclamation, we managed to merge three BBS projects
in one: one by Andreas Schwartz, Kevin ‘radsaq’ Radloff, and yours
truly. The project will be known as RForum (for the want of a better
name), and its home page is http://rforum.andreas-s.net/trac.

Andreas’ code was taken as a baseline (it looked closer to production
grade). Presently, I am busy merging some of ex-RubyForum features into
it.

One thing agreed by all is that it is NOT going to be a phpBB clone.
I.e., no bbCode, smilies and avatars

I would like to repeat my call again: if you are writing a Rails BBS,
please join with us. Let’s write one really good one instead.

Best regards,
Alexey Verkhovsky

Jonas Hartmann wrote:

what happens if the best wiki engine on earth is written in ruby? what
happens if the best free bulletin board on earth is written in ruby?
what happens if the best cms on earth is written in ruby? (all os, gpl
or at least bsd style)

So much sensibility on one spot, it might just implode and create a kind
of black hole.

Anyway, to add something here: there is rarely A single best thing. Not
that I want to stop you from trying...

kaspar

semantics & semiotics
code manufacture

www.tua.ch/ruby

Andreas Schwarz ha scritto:

What I (and most of the users) do NOT want is:
* BB-Code or HTML
* User icons
* Smilies
* Everything else phpBB has

I agree on avoiding bbcode, user icons and smlies.. but a simple markup system is imho useful. Maybe textile

No thanks, I'm writing one in a framework without rails. The main developer is reluctant to help package it for RPA.

This is completely false. I've instructed Mauricio on how I've done the packaging for GEMs, clarified the division between library and stubs, AND welcomed any patches to Rails that would make it easier to package for RPA (under the condition that it didn't disrupt the two other packages I'm maintaining for it myself).

Please stop spreading ill will and false statements like this.

Everyone chooses what works for them, and, this thread was originally
for people who have already decided on Rails, and, one might assume,
prefer it to the alternatives.

So, what purpose does your post serve? It doesn't offer an alternative
or contribute anything to the discussion.

Leon

Kaspar Schiess wrote:

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Hash: SHA1

Jonas Hartmann wrote:
> what happens if the best wiki engine on earth is written in ruby? what
> happens if the best free bulletin board on earth is written in ruby?
> what happens if the best cms on earth is written in ruby? (all os, gpl
> or at least bsd style)

So much sensibility on one spot, it might just implode and create a kind
of black hole.

Anyway, to add something here: there is rarely A single best thing. Not
that I want to stop you from trying...

I thought about adding a part about "what is best" - but left it out, cause i thought noone would care! :-p

I accept that this is in the eye of everyone, is a subjective thing.

Working on GPL'ed projects my opinion is that "best" means most subjects who use it, like it and got very little need for changes and requests.

Another possibility would be to just go the sientific way and set the "best" to something like finding the best ways to design software for a specific task.

regards
  Jonas

gabriele renzi wrote:

Andreas Schwarz ha scritto:

What I (and most of the users) do NOT want is:
* BB-Code or HTML
* User icons
* Smilies
* Everything else phpBB has

I agree on avoiding bbcode, user icons and smlies.. but a simple markup system is imho useful. Maybe textile

This might be is difficult to combine with usenet style quoting, and I actually never had a feature request for this. I am already creating links from URLs and doing some basic formatting for _this_, /this/ and *this*, that seems to be sufficient.

Another reason for why I don't need and want a full markup system is that I don't want the users to abuse the forum as a content management system (like it is often done with phpBB), because a Wiki is much better suited for this task.

Please accept my apologies on behalf of the RPA team (which David Ross
is NOT a part of.)

The RPA team has repeatedly privately asked David to stop posting
things like this.

I am now repeating that request in public: David, PLEASE do not post
anything like this. We want to have friendly relationships with and
work with everybody in the Ruby community. When you post negatively
about them WRT RPA, it gets in the way.

Eivind.

* leon breedt <bitserf@gmail.com> [1017 16:17]:

It's on our todo lists -- It's just a particularly hard thing to
package "the right way" (complying with various distribution policies,
as well as RPA's policies)

Rails isn't exactly a library is part of the problem, and there's some
dependency on Gems even in the tarball version in the last release I
looked at. It's not that David (Addressing in the third person here,
pardon) is unwilling to make Rails packageable, it's that it's
somewhat unique in that it's neither app nor library per se. It's a
process, and at the moment, David's busy pushing for 1.0.

Mauricio keeps poking at Rails on occasion, but it's a moving target
because of the rapid development, and there's a lot on everyone's
plate. RPAs will come, but only when they're sure to work right out of
the package and work forever once installed.

It's not easy, but there's really no ill will here: just differing
opinions on what's most important, and what order things have to be
done in.

G'day, all.

Aredridel
PLD RPM Packager

Jonas Hartmann wrote:

(...)

I see you have taken me seriously, which is probably more than I
deserved. I agree with your thoughts about 'the best'.

I would love to see a really good BBS written in Ruby.

kaspar

semantics & semiotics
code manufacture

www.tua.ch/ruby

Andreas Schwarz wrote:

gabriele renzi wrote:
> Andreas Schwarz ha scritto:
>
>
>> What I (and most of the users) do NOT want is:
>> * BB-Code or HTML
>> * User icons
>> * Smilies
>> * Everything else phpBB has
>
>
> I agree on avoiding bbcode, user icons and smlies.. but a simple markup
> system is imho useful. Maybe textile

This might be is difficult to combine with usenet style quoting, and I
actually never had a feature request for this. I am already creating
links from URLs and doing some basic formatting for _this_, /this/ and
*this*, that seems to be sufficient.

Another reason for why I don't need and want a full markup system is
that I don't want the users to abuse the forum as a content management
system (like it is often done with phpBB), because a Wiki is much better
suited for this task.

You should consider bluecloth, since it is a formatter for standard
clear-text markup conventions like _this_, /this/ and *this*.

Curt

Andreas Schwarz wrote:

gabriele renzi wrote:

Andreas Schwarz ha scritto:

What I (and most of the users) do NOT want is:
* BB-Code or HTML

I agree on avoiding bbcode, user icons and smlies.. but a simple markup system is imho useful. Maybe textile

This might be is difficult to combine with usenet style quoting, and I actually never had a feature request for this. I am already creating links from URLs and doing some basic formatting for _this_, /this/ and *this*, that seems to be sufficient.

What about using Markdown via BlueCloth? It looks a lot like what is used on newsgroups anyway:

http://bluecloth.rubyforge.org/

Regards,
Florian Gross

Andreas Schwarz ha scritto:

gabriele renzi wrote:

Andreas Schwarz ha scritto:

What I (and most of the users) do NOT want is:
* BB-Code or HTML
* User icons
* Smilies
* Everything else phpBB has

I agree on avoiding bbcode, user icons and smlies.. but a simple markup system is imho useful. Maybe textile

This might be is difficult to combine with usenet style quoting, and I actually never had a feature request for this. I am already creating links from URLs and doing some basic formatting for _this_, /this/ and *this*, that seems to be sufficient.

well, than it sounds very reasonable. I wish to see the sw asap

My words this morning were short and rash. They were not to be interpreted in a offending position. I want rails to be a RPA package. I have spent much time trying to get it to work with RPA. I failed to do so, it just upsets me how much time I was trying and actually messed it up further. I've nothing against the developer DHH. He did answer a few of my questions, but it would have been helpful for him to tag with comments where complicatoins would occur if anyone would wish to change file locations.

--Dross

Aredridel wrote:

This might be is difficult to combine with usenet
style quoting, and I actually never had a feature
request for this. I am already creating
links from URLs and doing some basic formatting
for _this_, /this/ and *this*, that seems to be
sufficient.

What about Markdown
(http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/\)? It
has a Ruby implementation called BlueCloth. I like
Markdown because of the core reason the author gives -
it looks mostly like Plain Text e-mail.