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Decent programmer wanted

2K views 28 replies 18 participants last post by  Admin 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
It is high time for this site to fire the owners son as lead programmer and hire one that can fix this travesty. It is getting worse.
 
#5 ·
Okay, this one got my attention. I have not had any problems with the site, but maybe I've just been lucky. I'm curious to know what types of things need to be improved.
 
#6 · (Edited by Moderator)
Jerry - The site has apparently developed some technical problems over the past two days. The home page is all out of sorts. Extra ads are now displayed under/within each of the opening posts in the forums. The zoom feature no longer functions properly on the projects postings. The forums page now displays the full post instead of the short teaser that it used to be. Some people are having problems with their posts not posting, posting to the wrong thread, or double posting. And some people are reporting that the site doesn't respond to the back button when they try to go to the previous page.
 
#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
Being an amateur web developer, I can offer some insight and some hope for a quick resolution.

Here is the problem:

Oftentimes websites like Lumberjocks are built using pre-existing packages called CMS ( Content Management Systems ). These are PHP frameworks that are built by online communities consisting of thousands of developers who donate their time and coding in the original spirit of programming, IE open source, or FREE software, free exchange of knowledge for the betterment of mankind.

There are very few coders in the world who could single-handedly build a CMS as complex as Lumberjocks. It is more than likely the result of a large community of developers all contributing to a common cause, so fixing the foundation, the framework that Lumberjocks is built on, will necessarily be the result of a group effort by these developers.

The other component of this is the hosting companies running server farms where websites such as this one reside.

Upgrades to server software is oftentimes driven by security issues, so if a hosting company discovers that the software that is the backbone of their company is putting their company and clients at risk, they will institute upgrades.

Frequently these upgrades "break" open source and even proprietary PHP frameworks that were built to be compatible with older server software.

When this happens, the community of thousands that built the CMS has to respond by re-coding their framework to make it compatible with upgrades at the hosting company.

This can take time, sometimes a lot more than everybody would like. I might be completely wrong about this, but my bet is that the person responsible for this website is anxiously awaiting an upgrade to the CMS that Lumberjocks is running on. When that becomes available, he or she or they will no doubt update this whole site as soon as they are able.

This can be very tricky, in that sometimes the sql database that contains all of the historical data and content of this site may need to be updated as well.

Having personally gone through several such forced upgrades, and currently facing no less than 5 forced upgrades to all of my Joomla based sites, I can tell you it's no simple thing, and the risk is significant.

This is a community, hearts minds and souls have gone into this site for years. If I were having to upgrade the PHP framework for this site, I would be, in a word, terrified.

You only get one chance, or Lumberjocks is gone.

Maybe this information will help to assuage the members a little. I have utmost confidence that a fix is on the way. It just may take some time.

So let's do what woodworkers do. Get on with the project at hand and be good to each other.
 
#15 ·
I truly do understand how you feel. Ads can be quite intrusive at times, but unfortunately it simply isn't free to create and maintain a quality forum community. It can actually be pretty expensive. The money to pay for that has to come from somewhere. No matter where we go online these days, we are going to see advertisements, even your local news or social media site. It is what keeps the sites free to the users.

The key here is finding a balance that will meet the needs of everyone. I want to assure you that we are listening to you and brainstorming ways to find solutions.

Additionally, the guys are actively working to correct any tech issues as quickly as possible.
 
#16 ·
i think we need to display some patience, a lot of woodworkers have this ability, and just go into slow mode and say ahhhh, it will all be fine….others throw the hammer at there project and smash it….lol…i bet those who run this website would rather us be a bit patient….
 
#20 ·
Jumbojock, RE:

Jerry, thank you for your informed insight.

Just trying to shed a little light and let people know all is not lost. From the tone of Cricketwalker's posts it looks like this will get fixed pretty soon.

Some of my comments may have been taken as harsh. I am truly grateful for this and other websites like it that are free to the users. My somewhat uneducated comments were not so much criticism as a weak attempt at humor.

We've all been there. It's difficult to convey your real meaning in just text. I get hammered every time I post a comment on YouTube, so I've just stopped doing it altogether. I was a little reticent about posting my "explanation" but so far nobody has outright attacked me for it, so I feel lucky and a little relieved.
 
#22 ·
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones here. I have absolutely no ads showing up anywhere. Don't know why??? It has been so long since I first joined this site - 4 years, maybe longer.

I'm trying to remember if when I first joined I was given the option to donate a bit to help the site and also get rid of the ads? Not sure if it was here or did I do that on another site.

My back button is working fine in projects and elsewhere on the site.
My zoom seems to be fine as well.

The home page isn't there… but that's about all I can find that isn't working properly.
I'm using Firefox… and I think I'm using "ad blocker" as well.

-Bobby
 
#23 ·
Cricketwalker In the short time I have been associated with this community I can already tell that you are an incredible group of people. Things will get better! :)

Our site manager told us that very same thing early one morning in the desert of Iraq. Five minutes later we got hammered by rockets, grenades and finally Habib and all his friends rushed over the berm. Dropping into a bunker to reload and get more ammo I asked him, "Was this your vision?"

ROFLMAO
 
#26 · (Edited by Moderator)
Cricket , Welcome . I don't mind the Ad's as I know they are the reason the Site is free for me to use but it really seems that the majority of the issues with the site started about the same time as the new ad's started to show up. I would have thought as some others who have knowlege of how these thing are done have pointed out that the New Format along with the new ad's would have been Tested Off Site before being rolled out to the Live Site. Just a little QA work can go along way to preventing a bunch of unhappy users and even some who have stated they are or have now left the Site entirely because of the issues. I am not one of them but I really would like to see the Site rolled back to a pre issue date until the problems can be worked out and then rolled out live with the corrections in place.
My main issues , the top 3 and top 15 not working , the Zoom feature in Projects and Workshops not letting you go to the other photos posedt there and project entries not being just short entries that you could scroll thru easiely and the select the one you you wanted to open and look at without having to the entire entry of evey single one. Although this last issues seems to be better right now, hope it stays that way.
 
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