I could be forgiven for getting a sense of deja-vu at the forthcoming ‘final’ release of IP.Board 3.0.0. It’s a few months short of ten years since I released an alpha of Ikonboard and since then I’ve been in this position many times.
A ‘final’ release of a new major version is an oxymoron.
IP.Board 3.0.0 is no exception. The trouble is that this is not immediately obvious to many people. A fair number of people see a ‘final’ (sometimes called ‘gold’ in other circles) as a stamp of assuredness and completeness; a final product without any concessions such as bugs.
IP.Board 3 is a dramatic change change from the 2.3 codebase. This truly is a major upgrade. So much has changed, there’s virtually not a line of code left intact from 2.3.6. The core framework has changed for the better so much that is almost unrecognizable from IP.Board 2.
That gives us a lot of untested code in a lot of untested scenarios. We have undertaken a very long period of beta testing. Far longer than we had anticipated but we feel that the end justifies the means. We have a very stable product that only has relatively minor issues. Not including a hasty fix made to the bulk mailer 20 minutes before we released RC 2. That aside, the bugs we’ve fixed are mostly trivial (language missing, quirky browser bugs, etc) or esoteric (character set encoding issues, safe mode issues, etc).
However, no amount of beta testing will truly free a product of bugs. Especially one so comprehensively new as IP.Board 3.0.0. This is where the confusion is born. It is inevitable that ‘final’ will still contain some issues. They will be relatively minor and impact few but they will still be there. This shouldn’t surprise as this is the first release of our new software but it does catch a few people out. Both the 1.x and 2.x branches took several releases before the bug reporting rate slowed up.
Of course, I don’t want to put you off upgrading; quite the contrary. We’re using 3.0.0 RC 2 on our company forums just fine and we experience barely any issues and you should expect the same.
Keep in mind that when 3.0.0 has been released we plan to make small frequent minor releases to address any pertinent issues. This may be bothersome for some, but it really is the best way of deploying fixes quickly.
Whatever you chose, we hope that you enjoy using 3.0.0. It’s been a long journey and we thank you for sharing it with us.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. Ten years is a long time!
As an IPB user who started with ikonboard and made the move in feb. ’02 I must say that I’m still impressed about the way things have develloped! I will be using IPB for many years more.
I know it’s a great software. I’m looking forward to using it. I hope the subscription manager is improved when it’s released as a community project.
By the way, this Thesis template is looking extremely professional and nice!
-Neo