Announcement – Vanilla Plugins have been updated
Plugins LoginGuard and Advanced Logger for Vanilla Forums 2.0 have been updated today. The new versions fix some minor bugs, and increase compatibility with PHP Environments where Error Reporting is set to display Notice messages.
What are Notice messages?
Notice messages are minor notifications. They are usually ignored by default in PHP configuration as, even if…
Repetita iuvant: you’re a Developer, not a Priest
Repetita iuvant (latin): repeating things helps.
In this case, I'd like to repeat a message I sent in the past, but that seems to fall on deaf ears way too often: if you are a Developer, you must not behave like a Priest. I felt the need of repeating it because, in a short time frame, I stumbled upon a couple of websites with messages such as "we don't support Internet…
Being a Developer must not become a burden
This post has been inspired by a discussion spawned from a thread on Vanilla Community, about the topic of business models for the products created by Developers. Very briefly, one of the key points was the comparison between a purely commercial model, where (almost) everything that one creates is sold for cold, hard cash, versus a more collaborative one, where Developers…
New Release – Steam ™ Sign In Plugin for Vanilla 2.0
Steam ™ Sign In Plugin for Vanilla 2.0 is now available for purchase. This simple plugin allows your Users to register and log on your forum using their Steam ™ profile. This plugin relies on the OpenID plugin which is shipped with Vanilla.
Important
The OpenID plugin shipped with Vanilla contains a bug which doesn't allow Users to enter an Email address…
New Release – LoginGuard for Vanilla 2.0
LoginGuard for Vanilla 2.0 is finally available! Just in time for Samhain, the Celtic New Year. LoginGuard puts an end to brute force attacks against your Community, by tracking repeated failures and temporarily banning Users who are subject of suck attacks. More information can be found on product page.
Discount!
To celebrate both the release and the Samhain, you…
New Release – Basic and Advanced Logger for Vanilla Forums 2.0
It took a while, but it's finally ready. Basic Logger for Vanilla Forums 2.0 is available for download. Based on the powerful Apache Log4php, it adds much needed logging capabilities to the already excellent Garden framework, allowing Developers and Administrators to keep track of activities with extreme ease. I strongly believe that, in this era of expected 24/7 website…
Code != Clothing, or How to neatly structure your code
Having been worked with countless technologies , frameworks and 3rd party libraries, I can say that I have seen almost every possible way of organising the code for a project. From the approach of putting every file in a single folder "just for now" (where "now" becomes "forever", because moving things around is just too complicated), to the one of creating humongous,…
The first rule you need to observe to become a Professional Developer
The inspiration for this post came to me while reading a few invitations I received from some of the "modern contracting" websites. I'd like to thank them for giving me a chance of some good bashing, but I won't write their names here as they don't deserve free advertisement.
A bit of background
I registered on some of these websites some time ago, because I needed to…
New Release – Cron Jobs Plugin for Vanilla Forums 2.0
Today is a big day, I finally released my first plugin for Vanilla Forums. It was about time, I started using Vanilla in February, and worked on several plugins for many weeks, but they were all "work in progress" and I never felt that they were ready for release. It's so typical of Developers, looking for an unreachable "perfection".
Two words about Vanilla Forums
If…
A new section is open: Downloads
Over two months have passed since my last post, and I realize that the backlog of the things I wanted to write about is growing every day. However, I'm stubborn and I won't get discouraged, especially now that I learned how to stop making goals, and I switched to projects. Much better feeling, stronger sense of accomplishment, definitely a better way of planning. If you're…
The effects of Technological Religion – Case Study
This post is an addendum to Golden Rule: a Developer is not a Priest. For better understanding of the context, I recommend to read that post first.
Technological Religion is something I found in several places where I worked and, trust me, its effects have never been positive. I remember a case where the fanaticism of two teams was so strong that it created a barrier…
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