Latest News: Just released version 3.06 with fixes to two reported
bugs, and a third one I discovered. It did involve significant
restructuring of the search/templating process so there is the
possibility of some new bugs. But I think it is all working. In fact,
now you can do order, sort, include, exclude, type, count, etc., in
info reports! Read the changelog carefully if you are pre 3.04. Enjoy!
* Fixed login command to accept member email addresses as well as
member id, assuming login pages are indexed.
* Fixed bug in color tag involving multi-line colored text.
* Fixed a bug in the info report function, that required a minor
restructuring of the entire search processing code. Please check your
site for any search related glitches.
I've also been posting occasional BoltWire blog entries. I wonder if I
should post them to the mail list? I copied the latest below...
Cheers,
Dan
P.S. Just released a slightly upgraded sedit plugin for to solve bugs
when there are links in headers.
----------------------------
Fixing things right...
BoltWire Blog -- May 20, 2009
One thing I've noticed with software development is that it's often
tempting to fix things quick, rather than fix them right. Since
BoltWire has been a labor love, and not a commercial venture I've
tended to do the latter. I think it's one of BoltWire's strengths.
I'll give you two quick examples.
Dashes
For a long time we've had problems with people putting -- into a
page for a dash, and then BoltWire interprets that as meaning "shrink
the font" and people get unexpected results. Recently I stumbled on to
another syntax for large and small << and >> respectively. Made good
sense, fit our style, and far less chance of conflict. But to do so
would mess up existing sites. What do I do? Options: leave it alone,
or write a difficult upgrade script to ease the transition. Of course,
I ended up choosing to fix it right. Much more work, but worth it.
Searches
Another example is a recent bug reported since 3.04 involving the
if parameter no longer working on info reports. It was introduced by
an effort to shuffle functionality around to different functions to
simplify the code, and enhance features. But in the process the info
function get the short end of the stick. To solve it I had two
options: duplicate about four lines of code in the info function or
analyze the entire system from the ground up and restructure it yet
again to make sure everything gets full functionality. I chose the
latter. No guarantee I didn't introduce new bugs. But I know it
trimmed the code, added new capabilities, increased consistency and
performance, and makes things better all the way around. I won't go
into the details, but instead of taking two minutes to fix, it took an
hour. Even if it takes a time or two more, it will be worth the
effort, to get it right.
These are the kinds of choices I've been faced with all along. The
easy way. Or the way that opens up maximum possibilities. I've always
tried to choose the latter. To fix things right.
It sometimes means an extra bug or more complexity, as the solutions
are generally more involved. Like the examples I mentioned above. But
over the course of time it leads to rapid and robust development. It's
part of the idea behind BoltWire...
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