RavenNuke(tm) seems to be put on a pedestal of Gold?

Involved Joined: Jul 03, 2006 Posts: 273

Added By Raven: This thread has been split out from the thread Incorrect theme name reading in every phpnuke

Ah sorry to have struck a cord with my comment there. Please don't take offense. Also don't take offense to the next set of comments but I must explain partially my comment.

While I do admire RavenNukes Team. You guys embrace the open-source concept much better than many other places in the Nuke Community and continue to plug away hard at improving things. I am a coder so I appreciate and understand the hard work and hours of love hate spent on it. But I am also a little frustrated at times cause throughout the community RavenNuke seems to be put on a pedestal of Gold high above all other versions of Nuke in what seems to be a somewhat blind fashion.

Not to discredit the your efforts mind you but I really don't see all the hoopla sometimes. Yes you guys have done a great job and work hard and seem to have one of the largest most active teams and community but a lot of others efforts deserve merit too.

One thing that sort of bites me (and again I mean no offense but just want you to know from a users perspective that I am sure many users share my feelings) is the latest version of Raven almost seems to have gone backwards instead of forwards. I mean I have found a few bugs (minor but annoying) but there is a couple I would sort of call major and I find it a little frustrating that the release is 8 months old at least and there has not been a intermediate release of bug fixes. For instance I installed the package the other day and couldn't figure out why Admin settings weren't being saved only to discover that I had to have same usertable prefixes as rest of nuke. (hmm kinda backwards progress instead of forward) ok so I manually changed my prefix but now while changes take I must refresh everything twice to see the changes I make. (must be a cahce issue somewhere but I don't have the time to solve). Anyway the point being here that you have one of the largest development teams in all of Nuke community I would think several little bugs (and a big one like table prefixes are now broken) could have been fixed in 8 months and a little update dished out.

As a developer I would consider something which has somewhat gone backwards a top priority and release a fix ASAP for it. But that is my thought. Either way I am just a little frustrated as a user that these things still don't work. As a Developer I am even more frustrated cause all I here is "RavenNuke is soo awesome and everything else sucks" and I think to myself well hell I work hard and so do many others at trying to add to nuke or make changes but many people won't give you the time of day cause they believe "RavenNuke" is it.

Most Secure? Well I don't really think so. Not saying it isn't but not saying it is any MORE secure than the rest. I have run PNC 3 on my Clan site for 5 years without being hacked even though PNC 3 was one of the weakest secure versions because of the then very weak vWar and Squery and Platinum cores (which it was based off of at that time) How? Cause every time a Vulnerability was discovered I patched it right away. Are there still holes? Probably. But I bet there is also still holes to RavenNuke.

Anyway as I say don't take offense to the comments and no need to defend these "accusations" (if that is how you see them however I think there may be a better word that eludes me) but just realize that I (and I am sure many others) see things this way sometimes. Perhaps you guys could pick your arses up and give us some fixes to the current release soon! hehe

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:13 am

Got to love the ones who tell you not to take offense right before they slam you.... ROTFL

Any how, I hope you find the CMS that works for you..... Cheers

Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6433

duck,

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I believe your opinion is incorrect. I don't think your intent is to slam anyone, and providing specific examples to support your statements is definitely appreciated because it enables action. It's difficult to take action on generalizations like "there are too many forums addons in RN." (actually, there are only 3 I can think of, and only 2 that affect themes).

Anyway, when we find issues, we either post fixes in the forums or provide updates as quickly as possible. If you have an unresolved issue, we will certainly try to address it quickly. Which post describes the issue?

Also, I'm not sure why you see it that way, but the attitude here isn't that everything else sucks - it's how can we improve RN to make it the best choice? Yes, many here believe there are major issues with core PHP-Nuke, but unless you were left off the credit list for your contributions there, I'm not sure why you see it that way. That said, every software advertises something, and security has been a major focus for RN. We have defined goals and principles that guide our choices for improvements and define what we believe is "best." Those goals and principles may differ from those of other distributions / efforts, but it doesn't prevent us from working with them.

We definitely give credit and support to others who have made contributions, and Raven even publishes news about other distributions, addons, and other Nuke-related news. Have you seen similar support on other Nuke-based distribution's sites? I haven't, but I wouldn't expect to. Raven has always been a supporter of the greater Nuke community, with the only exception being the core Nuke as it was distributed and not supported by the original author. Developers like technocrat and djmaze, for example (and I am not intending to leave off the MANY others who have contributed - it's just that these are the two that came to mind at the moment), even though they develop other distributions / CMS software, have been valued contributors over the years, and we have incorporated many of their suggestions into RN.

On the community note, I appreciate your efforts to explain to bluerace that no one was attacking his efforts to improve the forums. That is definitely the case - we are very interested in efforts to move to phpBB 3, but haven't focused on that yet, so we have questions about others' efforts. 5 years ago, before RN was started and before I was a Nuke developer, I published a comparison of security tools for PHP-Nuke from the standpoint of a webmaster. I contacted all the developers before promoting the article to get their feedback. Some of the feedback was, shall we say, less than friendly. But in the end, the article provided webmasters and developers with a way to understand what was available at the time and what needed to be addressed. Although most of those tools disappeared, the NukeSentinel team, including Raven, continued to enhance it and make it the de facto security tool for Nuke. But my point is that everyone can contribute - and positive contributions are definitely welcome and appreciated by the RN team.

Even though we have a great team, life can sometimes get in the way of frequent releases. We are always looking to expand the team and appreciate the many contributions others make. It would be great if every Nuke developer and user had the desire to improve Nuke and worked together to do so. One of the things I enjoy about working with this team is that everyone contributes in some way, and the team is always changing.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:47 am

Best is just an opinion based on your personal needs as a webmaster. If I were to run a gaming site, PNC, Platinum or Evo would all be great choices. IMO RavenNuke offers just what I need without the other stuff I don't need for Content Management. Just an opinion. Comparing different Nuke Forks is like comparing apples to oranges. They all seem to have a separate intended audience. BTW, I have never heard anyone bash other forks on these forums. The work done by the Nuke community as a whole has been unbelievable. Nuke Korea is very active and doing great things for the future of Nuke as are many others. It is what it is.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:26 am

@Fire - Not really meant as a Slam. I actually like RavenNuke a lot too. I admire the efforts of the team and feel they have done much to rectify much of nukes inherent weaknesses.

@nukelan - Agreed.

@kguske - Well spoken! BTW first I've seen your article and I think it is excellent. Nice work. Also note that I wasn't accusing anyone from the Raven Team as slamming others work. Actually they are very supportive of others from what I can tell. It is just few people (not Raven Team) seem to blindly dis and praise without consideration or understanding or experience but based solely on assumption. It's ok to have preference or like something better than another but don't diminish the others potential because of it. (that last comment not directed at you or anyone in particular). But in case there is still confusion as to my sentiments about Ravennuke or its Team let me reiterate I think RavenNuke (and its Team) are definitely one of the best choices the Nuke community has available.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:53 am

Sounds like we all agree...so let's get back to work!

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Duck, first of all you misquoted me and I think that's a part of this whole issue. You state

Quote:

Most Secure? Well I don't really think so. Not saying it isn't but not saying it is any MORE secure than the rest. I have run PNC 3 on my Clan site for 5 years without being hacked even though PNC 3 was one of the weakest secure versions because of the then very weak vWar and Squery and Platinum cores (which it was based off of at that time) How? Cause every time a Vulnerability was discovered I patched it right away. Are there still holes? Probably. But I bet there is also still holes to RavenNuke.

Where in my reply did I state "Most Secure"? What I clearly stated was

Quote:

We do claim that it is one of the most SECURE releases available.

Note that I said "One of the most". There's quite a difference!

Quote:

But I am also a little frustrated at times cause throughout the community RavenNuke seems to be put on a pedestal of Gold high above all other versions of Nuke in what seems to be a somewhat blind fashion.

And that's our fault, why? It seems like your frustration may be with the Community? RN has a very good reputation because it is backed by a solid Team of developers and the security exploits have been minimal. We have fixed some exploits that were never made public because we work with people who do nothing but exploit any application they can, especially nuke type sites.

I'm sorry but I'm just not with you on this one. If you will provide specific examples of where we went backwards I would appreciate it. Keep in mind that we know there is still much to do especially in the area of hard coding vs. dynamic.

Quote:

As a developer I would consider something which has somewhat gone backwards a top priority and release a fix ASAP for it. But that is my thought. Either way I am just a little frustrated as a user that these things still don't work. As a Developer I am even more frustrated cause all I here is "RavenNuke is soo awesome and everything else sucks" and I think to myself well hell I work hard and so do many others at trying to add to nuke or make changes but many people won't give you the time of day cause they believe "RavenNuke" is it.

Again, where is the specific code that supposedly gone backwards? Since you are being truthful with no intent to offend, I will respond in like kind. I am not attempting to offend but just stating what I think is more at the root here. I don't especially sense only frustration. I am also sensing resentment or even jealousy. I cannot answer for the people who made the comments that you find so frustrating. You will have to contact them as we don't solicit nor try to force opinions.

I try to support other versions through open forums, news publishing, advertising, and even donating to other work as I can. I just really think you have misplaced the target of your "frustration" or whatever it really is.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:42 pm

Raven I'll leave the rest of the comments alone cause basically you are right when you say my frustration is more with others than anyone on the Raven Team. But I think I did say that already?

Anyway to answer more important question about backwards is the latest version doesn't allow me to do something I have always been able to do that is have separate prefixes in tables. To me that is backwards. Now I can't remember for sure but the whole downloads admin looks different to me. Could be I used a different mod in the past I dunno. Anyway to me its not very friendly as I have no easy edit for downloads compared to before.

This whole having to refresh twice after every change is annoying. And there has been a few other minor bugs here and there though I can't remember them all and many have been addressed in the forums. But part of my point is many have been addressed in the forums so why not take those Bugs that have been fixed already and just add em to the package and rezip? I mean that doesn't take that much time to do? They already fixed just put in the fix and zip and upload. That is a little frustrating knowing you gotta go hunt for fixes in forums that have already been solved after you download the latest package. But I dunno if that makes sense to you?

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:55 pm

Post edited. I guess I misunderstood. Sorry Shocked

Regular Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 74

Oh God.
This topic was separaed from my a light and random thought about 'theme naming' issue.
Next time, I should be really careful to post such suggestions because discussion will go to labeinth easily.

Confused

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:51 pm

Duck,
I would invite you to post whatever "Issues" you find in RN. I have found a few over the years and every time the RN team either A. Fixed them, B. Pointed me in the right direction to fix them myself (becasue it was simply my own preference.) or C. Explained to me why there was an error in my logic.

I will even present the recent issue with the Referer Blocks. I brought up the issue of missing the Referrer Block in this newest RN. They explained why it was left out. Pointed me in the right direction to find the data and then helped me create a Referrer Block that works with RN.

I have been around the internet since the days of BBS's (Before the Internet) and IMHO RavenNuke is the BEST Nuke Distro out there and that is why I use it. That does not mean that there are not other good ones....I like RN and I like the support that goes with it...so I use it.

IMHO RN deserves to be on a GOLD Pedestal....

RN ROCKS!
RavensScripts

Just my .02

Dawg

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:07 pm

Sexycoder, I believe that is exactly how it is done. If it is a security issue, a true security issue as soon as it is found and a fix implemented, it is uploaded. Security issues are not held to the next major release. Minor issue fixes have been posted in the forums and then the next major released version has these implemented into them, but I do not believe any of these were considered security issues or even close to one. More along the lines of small annoyances or bugs, not security related. I am sure if I am in error Raven or one of the mods here will correct me...... Very Happy

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:56 pm

For me, I keep my sites current to the latest distro, which can be some work if you have modified any of the code... so I don't really want a new release that only features minor fixes. Would much rather the RN team be spending their time on developing the next major release.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:57 pm

Duck,

We have not changed anything at all, to my knowledge, concerning prefixes. When we find a hard coded prefix we change it to $prefix or $user_prefix depending on what table/s is/are involved.

And as to backwards compatibility:

We have stated before and I'll reiterate here. The further we go with RavenNuke(tm) the more the likelihood that backward compatibility will continue to crumble. Not in all areas but in specific ones. So far we have kept backwards compatibility at or near the top of must haves for each release. But it does absolutely no good to use antiquated code nor bad code with an envelope of code to fix it just for compatibility sake. The refactoring of $dbi to $db is a prime example. And when we refactor the theme system, that will probably be the major one.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:00 pm

Sexycoder, that IS how it's always been done so I don't understand your point.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:21 pm

Quote:

As a Developer I am even more frustrated cause all I here is "RavenNuke is soo awesome and everything else sucks"

Where are you hearing this? Certainly none of think this way.

We may question certain things - but not because we think they suck. Rather, we offer criticism in an attempt to give a second opinion and what they entail.

While you may think the releases are slow, we are all involved in other things. We are not all full-time developers to RavenNuke. To rush code changes themselves just for rapid code advancement is not good. While we may ultimately be slower to implement and push things out, a steady review of the code is how we do things.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:39 pm

Thank you duck for giving something specific that I can respond to.

duck wrote:

... the latest version doesn't allow me to do something I have always been able to do that is have separate prefixes in tables. To me that is backwards.

This was caused by a bug in RNYA because one use of $prefix should have been $user_prefix
A fix for this should be posted in the forums.

Quote:

Now I can't remember for sure but the whole downloads admin looks different to me. Could be I used a different mod in the past I dunno. Anyway to me its not very friendly as I have no easy edit for downloads compared to before.

There were no changes to the downloads module except for some minor XHTML 1.0 Compliance fixes and some date/timestamp fixes to extend compatibility with more languages.

Quote:

This whole having to refresh twice after every change is annoying.

Yes it can be if you are one of the few people that is constantly changing block/module access rights and block positions.
This was also covered in the fixes forum and is the result of caching directives in htaccess. You can remove them if you want but most people prefer the benefits that caching gives them to speed up the page rendering process. It isn't a bug as such, more of a side effect of trying to be efficient.

Quote:

And there has been a few other minor bugs here and there though I can't remember them all and many have been addressed in the forums.

There will always been minor bugs as it is simply impossible to test under every possible scenario but we do our best to ensure there are as few bugs as possible. In fact, we probably spend more time testing than we do developing because relatively small changes in one area, can have impacts in many places.

Quote:

But part of my point is many have been addressed in the forums so why not take those Bugs that have been fixed already and just add em to the package and rezip? I mean that doesn't take that much time to do? They already fixed just put in the fix and zip and upload.

No you are perfectly right, it doesn't take much time but to be honest, my personal opinion is that constantly re-releasing any software for minor fixes is time consuming and also confusing for the end user.
Personally, I don't want to keep updating my site every week or however frequently a minor bug fix release might be unless it is a security related fix.
How would that work? Would you want a download based on date? Version number?
Many people don't remember which version they are using after a couple of weeks and updating to a new version every few weeks would confuse them even more. You could release based on date but who even remembers the date when they installed the last version (without checking the file timestamp via ftp).

When I first started building websites I used a Perl based CMS called webAPP. They were really good at releasing fixes every week or so but after a few months, I got so tired of having to update the site, I dropped it in favor of phpNuke. I want users to be able to use my site, not be greated with a "we are down for maintenance" message every week.

Something that has been up for discussion within the Team is possibly allowing access to a "nightly build" of files but even that has it's complications.
If there was a *safe* way to have distributions automatically update themselves then that it something we would seriously look at but even that has it's problems.. how do you cater for sites which may have modified core files and the auto-update mechanism ove writes those changes?

This is really good feedback, thank you.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:13 am

I don't want to drag this conversation out much more but to say Guardian I agree that making users upgrade every couple weeks could be annoying for some. But it doesn't have to be every couple weeks. I mean it has been 8 mos since last release and if I search through the forums I could prob find close to a dozen little fixes at least for this and that. So after say a dozen little fixes Why not zip it up? Doesn't have to be announced as a recommended update even. Just maybe replace the existing package if you want leave the version number the same ore make small increments and say this is just minor bug tweaks what have you.

But as an end user I kind of find it frustrating to download a product that was released 8 mos ago then have go hunting thru forums to fix a dozen odd little bugs that have already been solved but not added to the package.

If noone here has the time to do that then perhaps I can volunteer for you. Do you have a bug tracker list of fixes made since the release? I'll go through and add em all and Zip em up for you this way you won't have 20 more forum posts next week asking for the same answers. My time is short too but I'll do the couple hours it'll take to track em all down and implement them.

The nightly build is a nice idea but if that worries you what about Making a Latest Release Fixes Category in your downloads? Just put the file for a fix in there. Or even copy and past the instructions from a forum post to a text file and put it in there.That oughta take all of 5 minutes to add when you get a fix. After every dozen or so make a full zip of all fixes or something. Just a thought.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 2:48 am

I am to blame for the lack of an earlier release. I have major health issues that require very powerful drugs that only allow me around 6 or 8 alert hours per day and sometimes less. I won't go into it any more than this. But since the last release the Team has been diligent in working the Mantis issues but they have had to wait on me. Our plans right now are aiming for a September release. It could be earlier but we have targeted (not promised) September.

Fixes are not as simple as you make them sound. When a fix is posted/suggested, we have to look at it from how it melds into the latest SVN Trunk, where there are sometimes hundreds of changes/modifications that you don't even know about. Then it usually need to be regression tested as well as tested with several browsers. We check it for security also. We are a very QA centric Team. We refuse to rush fixes out and run the risk of having to fix the fix. That does not inspire confidence w/i the Community. I believe there is good reason why RN is so popular, why this site is a P/R 6, and has had an Alexa rank as high as 59k this year. It's because we release solid code when we do releases.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:10 am

duck, your frustrations around bug fix releases is definitely noted and I believe very much a concern with the RN Team as well. Unfortunately, it is not just Raven's time constraints hindering us. It is all of us.

Give us a chance with the next 2.4.0 release to make some changes in this area.

Worker Joined: Mar 30, 2009 Posts: 132

out of all the "nuke" distros i have used RN has been the best.

as far as bugfixes and security fixes. there will allways be there as i think its 100% impossible to make these things 100% bug free and secure as there is allways a bug lurking or a new exploit

but out of all the nuke distros RN is quick to fix the bugs and or security problems.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:34 pm

Is it a bad thing that "RavenNuke(tm) seems to be put on a pedestal of Gold?" Shocked

I would say you paid the biggest compliment to RN anyone could have ever written :moon:

No question there are some great people here!
RavensScripts

jc

Involved Joined: Nov 19, 2003 Posts: 282

Dawg wrote:

Duck,
I would invite you to post whatever "Issues" you find in RN. I have found a few over the years and every time the RN team either A. Fixed them, B. Pointed me in the right direction to fix them myself (becasue it was simply my own preference.) or C. Explained to me why there was an error in my logic.

I will even present the recent issue with the Referer Blocks. I brought up the issue of missing the Referrer Block in this newest RN. They explained why it was left out. Pointed me in the right direction to find the data and then helped me create a Referrer Block that works with RN.

I have been around the internet since the days of BBS's (Before the Internet) and IMHO RavenNuke is the BEST Nuke Distro out there and that is why I use it. That does not mean that there are not other good ones....I like RN and I like the support that goes with it...so I use it.

IMHO RN deserves to be on a GOLD Pedestal....

RN ROCKS!
RavensScripts

Just my .02

Dawg

Back in 1991 I owned and operated my area's first multi-line BBS. I was successful ... no I dominated at .25 cents per hour ..... and it took AOL to put me out of business.

When I started there was no internet ....errrr _I_ was the internet Laughing

and some claim in the usenet forums of those days (if you know what those are) .... that in Columbus Ohio there was this boy named Draxx who is a lazy typer and has an abbreviation for everything .... and some say that _I_ am the creator of ROTFLMAO and ..!..

Now all that bit of history said I waited 2 years for this group to finish the 2.3 version before setting out on the domain that I had registered .... 2 years ago ... with the mind of using this groups software.

I am always amazed that when I post a problem I get an answer from one of the admins .. these people who work hard and have gotten no financial reward from me because of it ... yet still take the time to give help.

Then I also think of Pablin and Dawg and Nuken and a few others, who might not be on the admin team, but who also spend an ounce of energy to help me out. The likes of this group would cost you $350,000 + a year to hire..... and alot of users here have spent nothing for what they have .... and I will continue to be amazed by that ... even after my site starts generating revenue and I make my first donations.

But I want to say that I understand when you take the kind of talent thats here why one would wonder why there isent more releases, more of this, more of that .... and thats natural. Our reptilian brains see more winners and a higher class team and that makes us want more more more. Laughing

If your human - your subject to this effect of the tiny peice of reptilian brain inside your skull.

Even that one dude on the other nuke site who tried to sell me a fix for the video stream pointed out "with 10 talented nuke professionals you would think it would do more".... he really said that to me. I just chuckled thinking sometimes less IS more.

So I think the statement RN is probably "one of the most secure" is quite true. It has a decent group of people and comming from a world where there was no one to ask I am very glad to know that I have someone to ask who will answer me if they can and won't send me a bill when its over!

RavensScripts

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:43 am

draxx, thanks for the history and a peek into "Draxx" Wink

Worker Joined: Sep 28, 2006 Posts: 241

It seems like a few of the issues duck mentioned are known issues and have fixes. The refresh 2 times situation can be fixed with a easy change in your .htaccess which you can search and find on the site here by inputting "cache" into the search box and make a couple simple line edits. The Prefix's can be changed if it is forum prefiex's i know it can be done in the root/modules/Forums/includes/constants.php. Change any prefix you would like and do like wise in your db as well. I think alot of members would be feeling slammed by your words because the RavenNuke release is a very nice step forward and is probably one of the most secure out there using the PHP-Nuke core as a base. If you have any suggestions or code change syou feel or felt would help improve the core i am sure raven and the team would gladly consider it, use it and give total credit. I to have tested almost every nuke version availablein the last 7 to 8 years and i do consider this as close to the original in base but without alot of the flaws and issues. At last count i believe there was over 17,000 changes to the original code to improve this cms. Thats a great thing considering they ask fo rno donations. It is done for the community and as you know, they have spent more sleepless nights going over this time and time again. Maybe a thank you would be in order at some point.