Thread

There has already been a lot of talk about the how the contributions should organized to see the trees through the forest, and there are some private initiatives (CodeIgniter Directory and CI base) but now with the new forum section connected to the wiki i think this can be a start of a new way using the wiki as a interface for the contribution repository.

Now all threads about contributions happen in the ignited code section of the forum but if you add a wiki page and start a discussion you can channel the usage of the contribution to the ignited code section and the bugs/requests/versionlog discussion in the new wiki section.

There are a lot of contributions in a compressed file, mine included, but i think this is a bad way to distribute your contribution because you have to download the whole contribution if you want to to explore it. A public trunk would be the best way i think.

All ideas on this are welcome.

Idealy I can say something like Trac + SVN per project, but that would make a big infrastructure to think from EllisLab (I am thinking about something like Assembla where any project have his space)

I’m not asking Ellislab to run version and bugtracker software on it’s servers but that contribution developers create an Assembla or googlecode or something else repository. I think if all the files of the contributions are accessible people are less likely to try to reinvent the wheel. Why write your own solution for a similar problem if you can copypaste it.

There have been in the past a SVN initiative (started by the guys of Kohana as far as I remember) but it fail into a non-sens repository… My thought is that if we have to go external from EllisLab, then Assembla would be a great choice (there is already some CI projects there) I would say also that if a kind of Assembla handled by EllisLab was existing I would use it with pleasure because I really don’t like the Wiki actually…

There are already a lot of people that distribute their code through svn (or at least have a public trunk).  The problem is organization.  I know where I can find contribution x iff I’ve stumbled across it before.  What you need is someone who takes responsibility for keeping things organized and up to date, which is why those private sites are much more useful.

The wiki would be great, but it leaves a lot to be desired.  For one, I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t remember what pages I’ve made.  That’s a real problem, because I can’t update them and have yet to find a list of them.  Then there’s the fact that you can’t delete or overwrite your own uploads, so files end up being called my_app.v1.4.6.RC7.B.typofix.zip .
And last, but certainly not least is the organization (or lack thereof).  The language related categories, for example: Language (twice!), Language Extensions, Language: Language Extensions, Base Language Files, Internationalization, Internationalization Views i18n, and Libraries:Language.  You can’t expect people to look through that!

For the organization i think the new forum section would be a easy way to see which pages/contributions are still maintained. An extra benefit would be that if the contribution developer starts the topic in the wiki section you can search your own contribution(s) via the forum which has a more advanced search.

Inparo you are right about the zips but i think if the developer has a public trunk the need for uploading files is going to be less.

To tell the truth i don’t keep my eye on those private initiatives, although i really admire the effort. For a part because it’s redundant information.

My suggestion for adding a contribution would be;

Create a wiki page where you introduce your contribution and add the code or download links.
Start a discussion which is added to the wiki section on the forum.
Start a thread in the ignited code where you add links to the wiki page and wiki section.

Creating two topics on the forum keeps discussions about what should be added and how to use it separate. Some popular contributions now have 30+ pages threads, try to filter usable information out of that

i’m just hosting codeextinguisher on a server….hopefully i’ll get enough donations to pay for it…but I realize that’s not an option for a lot of people.