Planet phpBB

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Episode Duration: 1:34:56
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (webmacster87), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Francis Lewis (Handyman`)

It’s our last live episode of phpBB Weekly, and the last time David and Douglas are on the show as the regular co-hosts before the show goes under new management. However, it was a special episode, not only because almost the entire thing was improvised without planned show notes, but as a great opportunity for recapping Libertyvasion 2010 and offering some parting thoughts to the phpBB project as it continues moving into the future.

We start by looking at how we can help make MODding eaiser by offering suggestions to the teams on where to implement hooks in phpBB 3.1 Ascraeus.

Douglas also recaps some of the presentations from Libertyvasion, noting some of the plans and discussions relating to the future of phpBB development-particularly concerning phpBB4′s integration with Symfony 2–and recapping presentations about the proliferation of the MOD Team Tools, and looking at the improvements coming to the automatic MOD installer to be included with phpBB 3.1.

We also congratulate Yuriy and Patrick on their promotions to Operations Manager and Support Team Leader, respectively, and Douglas notes that Rich McGirr (RMcGirr83) was also given a surprise promotion to full MOD Team Member. Some other promotions that were neglected on the episode include the additions of Igor Wiedler (eviL<3) to the Developer Team and Christian Bullock (Christian 2.0) to the Support Team, along with a number of other new team members throughout the teams.

Then, Douglas and David pull back and reflect on how phpBB Weekly started and grew–against all odds–to the institution that it is today. We reflect back on some of our more memorable episodes — some of the ones mentioned are our BBGourmet April Fools episode, our first interview with Patrick O’Keefe, and the one where the teams taunted Douglas about the phpBB3 Gold release.

Then, David and Francis give us one last little chunk of podcast acting, as they take us all the way to England, where a man tries to get a license for his fish named Eric.

Finally, we close with our MOD and Style of the Week. We congratulate the winners of the Summer of MODs contest by making both of the winning MODs our MODs of the Week: Precise Similar Topics II by VSE, and Thanks for posts (ratings edition) by [WordPress is unable to display his username properly]. And for the Style of the Week, we honor Christian’s victory in the Libertyvasion T-Shirt Contest by making the Style of the Week Absolution by Christian 2.0.

We all want to thank everyone who has followed phpBB Weekly for all these years; it’s been a fun ride. We’re looking forward to seeing how the podcast continues to grow and evolve when Phil and Sam take over the show, and wish them lots of luck and lots of fun!

OK, the title might be a bit vague so let me first describe what this is all about: I've been working on Unix and Unix-like systems more or less exclusively for the last nearly 10 years. I switched from Windows to Linux right after the new millennium started and only started to look back a bit thanks to Windows 7. So now, for about three weeks, I can call a Windows-PC my own again (look what Starcraft2 can do to you). Since I'm still very much a Python guy (although I really like quite a few other languages) I naturally want to continue coding Python even on Windows.

This works pretty well if you don't do one of two things: (1) Prefer Powershell over cmd.exe or (2) require some C-extension for Python (like keyring's Windows integration). Getting all this working will definitely take some time, so in this post I want to write about some of my first steps and impressions.

Powershell integration

Powershell actually isn't the real problem. You can easily use Python scripts in it to do basically everything you could do anywhere else. The problems start when you try to use virtualenv on top of Powershell. Right now, virtualenv only ships with some .bat files to do the activation for you, but the changes to the environment don't seem to propagate from the batch file into the shell. I guess, you could get around this by creating your own activation script but for Powershell or wrap the activation inside a PS-script that propagates the environment changes (I have that one working here thanks to some snippets I found all over the net, but it's still kind of a mess). If time permits, I really want to investigate this further and hopefully provide a patch to virtualenv for that.

That and learning Powershell scripting as a bonus :D

C-Extensions

Installing C-extensions for Python at first looked like a real big problem to me. I generally thought I had about 3 options here:

1. Going straight with cygwin and so basically giving up on Windows for C-extension-related development altogether or
2. Getting a license of Visual Studio since I had read somewhere that that is still used for building the official binaries.
3. Go with MinGW/MSYS

Since I had never used MinGW before and kind of wanted to stick to "native" solutions this time around, my plan was to go with something like Visual Studio Express and see how far I could get.

Well, not that far, it turned out. Importing the project files in PC/PCbuild failed and so, being a total VS newbie, I reached a dead end after only a couple of minutes. Going with cygwin was beside the point so next I tried to install MinGW. And once I found the right documentation it was pretty simple:

1. Download the auto installer (current alpha, but it works pretty well) and extract it into C:MinGW
2. Add that folder's bin directory to your %Path%
3. Run mingw-get install gcc mingw32-make to install gcc and MinGW's make version

After that I configured distutils to use mingw's compiler. Thankfully distutils is quite customizable in that regard. All you have to do is create a pydistutils.cfg file in your home directory and add following lines to it:

[build]
   compiler = mingw32
   

When you next encounter a source page that includes C-extensions, distutils will use MinGW's gcc to compile it. At least, I can finally install keyring... just to find some issues with it that indicate some very limited testing on Windows but that's another story. I'm also not sure yet, if the compiled modules really work. I just tried it with some calls to them and at least they didn't die. I just take this as a good sign ;-)

Feelings so far

Well, so far I have a more or less working setup but for the near future I'll probably get most of my work on in the VM instead of the underlying OS (Win7). Installing MinGW was definitely easier than expected but I keep running into issues mostly related to the libraries I want to use (mongoengine and keyring) so this journey is far from being over :-)

"Seeing a Python through your Windows?" was written by Horst Gutmann and is licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Austria License.

• @MonkeysBrother Does it include the words "Please protect me from the fans"? in reply to MonkeysBrother #
• @Fletchian66 @NickBFC75 I usually read it if I've got 5 minutes to spare and want a laugh. Too many fishing trips/idiots on there for me in reply to Fletchian66 #
• Waiting for the usual "Laws Out" posts on Clarets Mad shortly #twitterclarets #
• Fox sounds like he's struggling #twitterclarets #
• @BeeHoleEnd Sat in the home end? Never a good choice I find, liable to get some very angry looks #twitterclarets in reply to BeeHoleEnd #
• Come on Accy #
• Test twitter from Mark's Blog. #
• @adamzander What are you going to do in the future? Sixth form? in reply to adamzander #
• @MaryLNaylor when do you start your course? in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• The thug scored quite a nice goal there #nufc #motd #
• @MaryLNaylor Hope you have fun, I'm off to Worcester for Bus Management. We'll have to do a clarets uni tweetup at a home game in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor Nice, what are you studying? in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• http://bit.ly/9djC9b Fergie still not playing ball I see #motd #mufc #
• Newcastle put 6 past Villa? Jeez #
• Haha. Claridge taking the piss out of Knob Enders. Best thing he's said all night #footballleagueshow #
• I'm also going to moan, why not show a proper replay of the disallowed goal so we can see if the ref was right or not? Fuckwits #
• 1m 10s of highlights. Rubbish. #twitterclarets #
• Anybody else think they give Savage airtime because he works for the BBC? #footballleagueshow #
• Jesus, Coventry v Derby on before us. It's enough to make you cry #twitterclarets #footballeagueshow #
• Hello? Ever going to show our game? #twitterclarets #footballleagueshow #
• @NickBFC75 Remember Ian Wright? #twitterclarets in reply to NickBFC75 #
• "Handball there?" "Yes and no" What? #uselessclaridge #
• Claridge, if in doubt, don't open your mouth and confirm to everyone you're an idiot #footballleagueshow #
• Could this be any more uninteresting… #footballeagueshow #

Nice! Seems like Packt Publishing once again launched their Open Source awards to support OSS projects out there. The awards are a bit CMS focused with two out of six categories being about content management solutions, but far less so than in previous years thanks to three new categories:

• E-Commerce applications
• JavaScript libraries
• Graphics software

So together with "Hall of Fame CMS", "Open Source CMS" and "Most Promising Open Source Project" there is quite a lot in the pot for the whole community with the winning project in each category receiving $2,500. For more information head over to the PacktPub.com.

Now I just have to come up with a list of projects to nominate myself. There is just too much great stuff out there :D At least I still have some time. The nominations will close on September 17.

"Packt Open Source Awards 2010 announced" was written by Horst Gutmann and is licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Austria License.

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Episode Duration: 52:58
Panel Moderators: Steve Atkinson (stevemaury / Support Team) and Douglas Bell (webmacster87)
Panel Members: David Colón (DavidIQ / MOD Team), Will Hough (will_hough / Moderator Team), Raimon Meuldijk (Raimon / Styles Team), Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty / Management Team & Support Team), and Josh Woody (A_Jelly_Doughnut / Developer Team)

This special episode of phpBB Weekly is the recording of the phpBB Team Discussion Panel session which took place during Libertyvasion 2010 in New York City on Saturday, August 21. Support Team member Steve Atkinson moderated the panel, while Douglas Bell coordinated the questions asked from the audience and from phpBB Weekly’s special Libertyvasion channel (#phpbb-libertyvasion on irc.freenode.net) to make this an incredibly informative session covering a wide range of topics.

All six teams were represented on this panel, and the members weighed their input topics including how quick reply made it into phpBB3, how phpBB “competes” with other bulletin boards and social media, what it’s like to work with such a wide age-range of team members, how plans for phpBB4 will affect phpBB, how each of the members got involved in the first place, and much more.

Enjoy this great discussion panel, and plan to join us for our final live phpBB Weekly episode this Saturday for a complete Libertyvasion 2010 recap!

• @cs278 Just not your morning is it in reply to cs278 #
• @paulus999 You in NY? #lvasion2010 in reply to paulus999 #
• @NoNayNeverNet is someone going to do an update on the #twitterclarets fantasy league? #
• Was only a matter of time #mufc #mondaynightfootball #
• @NickBFC75 Meat and potato obviously, is there anything better on a Saturday afternoon than a pie at the football in reply to NickBFC75 #
• Joey Barton. How is he still playing football? #
• @NickBFC75 Lucky bastard. That is all. in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @NickBFC75 How many pies do you get then? Surely it's not all you can eat is it? in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @NickBFC75 Free pies for a year? You going to share them out with the #twitterclarets ? in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @danwalkerbbc 5-0, 3-0 at HT in reply to danwalkerbbc #
• The ClaretsPlayer highlights are miles better than the BBC ones. Might actually be worth the money #twitterclarets #
• The amount of puns this football league show uses is just sad #
• 1m 20s highlights. That was worth waiting for. Not. #twitterclarets #

Session: Building Your Community by Cullen Walsh
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 5:00-5:40 PM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

This presentation is more focused on your community, though it’s not a be-all end-all, there’ll be a Q&A discussion at the end.

It’s important to know why you are creating your forum. What services and benefits is it going to provide? What will people get out of your forum? Just saying “I WANT A FORUM!” is the wrong answer. How will your site be different? Who do you want to attract? Why would they come to you? How will people find your site? (Google will not magically drive people to your site.)

Don’t spam your site! People will ignore it and delete it, except for spambots, who will immediately come to your site.
Use signatures and website fields to promote your site. Buy ads (if appropriate) to drive people to your site. However, note that targeted campaigns will go much farther than blanket ones. Bringing new users to your site is the hardest part of getting your new community off the ground.

How will your board be organized? Don’t start with dozens and dozens of forums. Are there any legal issues with your site? How many people do you expect? How do you plan on expanding?

Most importantly: Why are people going to stay? Your site needs to have content and a reason for people to stay, or people will drift away to other sites. Your site will be a failure unless you can answer all of these questions.

Once you’ve established your site, some tips:
* Moderation — There is no one-size fits all approach to moderation. You do need to prepare rules, but be flexible in how you enforce them. Don’t hide what you expect out of users. (On phpBB.com, every page links to the rules page.) Make sure that your users know the rules. Know how to handle various situations; you will encounter all kinds of situations on your board, including: spam, competitor advertisements, profanity, flame wars, forum games, obnoxious avatars/signatures, banned users coming back, criticism of your site, escalating complaints (& chain of command for dealing with appeals), legal threats/action, and plenty of others.
The phpBB.com Moderator Team has an internal 24-page guide for handling situations, and a private forum for communicating on how to handle situations and ensure problems are being handled fairly or consistently.

Open mic offering suggestions of other issues to be aware of. Mentioned were the “holy trinity of flame topics”: politics, religion, and web browsers. Be aware of local laws that apply to your board, i.e. the COPPA in the United States.
Question asked — isn’t it all just common sense? It is, but there are lots of people that don’t do the right thing for what’s best for the community.

When you’re building your site, think about what your community wants, what it needs, and what can help it grow. Don’t install 55 MODs on a site that has only 5 members, where’s the value there?

Session: Titania: The Customization Database by Nathan Guse and Tom Catullo
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 4:30-4:55 PM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

The Customization Database is an application that has been in use since the retirement of Ariel (the previous MODs/Styles Database), and Titania now handles more than just MODs and Styles and has many more features.

Titania improved searching contributions greatly over Ariel, makes category listings more prominent, easier to access and navigate. Now offers screenshots and demo links more prominently, and for non-styles as well. Titania also makes previous revisions available to the public for download. Much more prominent Download button.

For authors, contributions can now contain more information (screenshots, co-authors, demo URL, etc.) and allows for updating/editing this information for the contributions. Each contribution now has its own Support and FAQ sections, and support topics are propagated to a single location for authors. No longer necessary to cram all support into a single topic within the MODs or Styles Releases forum.

Titania also brings automation to the MOD revision process, including automatic checks by the MPV (MOD pre-validator) and AutoMOD. Author can immediately see the result and make fixes immediately without waiting for validation.

Titania is very maintainable. The code is object-oriented and generally contained in classes, and is built to integrate seamlessly with a phpBB installation. Titania makes use of a similar hooks system that phpBB has. Requires no edits in phpBB to install it, despite its size.

Unlike Ariel, Titania’s code is not directly integrated with phpBB.com but is its own application. It has been released on Code Forge so that International Support Teams can use it on their own websites rather than having to build their own.

Q&A
Titania uses its own system to provide the individual support forums for contributions, and is completely standalone, although it does take advantage of phpBB APIs where necessary.

Session: Automatic MOD Installation: Then and Now by Josh Woody
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 2:20-2:50 PM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

Josh will be talking about the history of automatic MOD installation (not just pertaining to phpBB), up to what’s coming in 3.1.

GNU diff/patch is “older than a wild Yuriy (1970s)” and powers the automatic updater. Diff/patch is well-supported in the *nix world, but not-so-well supported in the Win32 world.
In phpBB, GNU diff/patch is completely functional, but misses several items that MODs use, such as metadata, new file copies are more difficult, and “do it yourself” non-file change instructions. It’s not easy to process by hand.

EasyMOD was 2002-03, the granddaddy of this for phpBB3. Originally written by Nuttzy99, later picked up by Jim (TerraFrost). Performed MOD file changes well, but that’s about it. Couldn’t handle custom styles or translations. Josh steps us through a sample MOD install of Nils’ April Fools MOD for phpBB2 using EasyMOD 0.4.0 beta.
No options to speak of in EasyMOD, most support questions revolved around initial setup, especially permissions.

The MODX transition began because the Text Template limited what EasyMOD could do. It was a verbose patch with some metadata, didn’t work well with translations and multiple styles, etc. MODX allowed the new AutoMOD features to exist (just not always in an obvious or friendly fashion, or equitably). Now Josh steps through a sample MOD installation with AutoMOD 1.0.0 — noxwizard’s EasyPortal for phpBB3. Still has some issues that are not intuitive.

The Ascraeus MOD installer has the following priorities: Fix the user interface, address the inequities (things you can’t do with AutoMOD though supported by MODX), and make the code more flexible. No screenshots yet because the UI isn’t available yet, so far only backend work has been done.
The new MOD installer will move closer to a wizard interface, and give the user all relevant prompts before installing the MOD. Demonstrates the process of installing “RMcGirr83′s Beer MOD”. First get to tell AutoMOD how to process styles, how to process languages, if this is an upgrade to an existing MOD or not, and then start the install.

Question: Will phpBB 3.1 will be supporting a language fallback? For example, if new English strings are added that don’t exist in German, will phpBB fall back to showing the English strings by itself? Answer is no, not feasible at this time because of how the language files are implemented. Not feasible to calculate whether or not to fallback on a string-by-string basis.

Will phpBB interface with phpBB.com and the customization database? Answer is maybe, but only if the feature can be completed in time for the Ascraeus release.

Session: phpBB “Ascraeus” 3.1: News for MOD Authors by Henry Sudhof
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 1:30-2:10 PM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

The phpBB3 code-base looks like a bunch of spaghetti code. (Showing a picture of spaghetti on the screen.)

phpBB 3.0 introduced modules (plug-and-play), but were limited to adding pages to the control panels, and is not well understood. There are also plugins, which work for the search, CAPTCHA, auth, and cache. However, the functionality of these varies, there are different non-uniform APIs, and it’s not well adopted. And there are also hooks which alter phpBB’s behavior, but these are mainly intended for wrapping phpBB within other applications. They are rather limited, and by-and-large have not been adopted. Instead, we are using MODs, which are glorified patchfiles, but have excellent adoption.

MODs aren’t necessarily bad. They provide unlimited expressive power, are simple to understand, have a shallow learning curve, have been adopted very well, are a well-documented format, offer good performance, and benefit from MOD Team audits. However, there is a non-uniform codebase, creating difficulties with maintenance, it impedes updating phpBB, can cause conflicts and side-effects, and are difficult to install, among other issues. (Yet another picture of spaghetti on the screen.)

phpBB 3.1 introduces hooks into the system, meaning that the phpBB code will call and run all functions hooked into particular places of execution in the code

In order to do this, the old hook system is going to have to be rewritten. “Hooks have to be fun.” They need to be able to resolve conflicts (within limits), allow for easy placement, and make it easier to implement hooks.

phpBB 3.1 will have “automagic” hooks, using PHP OOP methods. Examples of the under-the-hood code that enables these to work being shown.

Flavors: Injection, Validation, Callback registration, Event, System, Altering, Cron, and many others.
phpBB needs ideas of where to place hooks, help with the MOD installer in hooks, community support for this implementation, and lots of testing of these hooks.

Thanks that won’t happen in phpBB 3.1: Forms not built by any form API, nor will there be pretty URLs (URL rewriting).

Q&A
Douglas comments that hooks are a big step for making more pluggable MODs, and it’s the main reason why WordPress Plugins are as successful and as plentiful as they are. However, in order for the hooks system to be successful, MOD authors really need to share feedback on where hooks should be added within the phpBB 3.1 core.
Stefan asks about why phpBB isn’t deciding to adopt Symfony’s hooking system within 3.1 to help reduce the spaghetti code and make future transition easier: the main issue is that phpBB 3.1 still needs to support PHP 5.2.x.

Session: MODding phpBB by David Colón, Igor Wiedler and MOD Team Members
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 10:20-11:00 AM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

What is the MOD Team? Well first you must know what a MOD, or MODification is — modifying the code of phpBB to add a new feature that doesn’t come with phpBB.
The MOD Team validates the code of MODs submitted to the Customizations Database, to make sure that it’s clean, secure, and functions as advertised.
This presentation is about how the team operates, what tools are available, and how you can get involved.

Paul & Derk to present on the Validation Process:
How you can get your MOD improved…
* Follow the phpBB Coding Guidelines
* Test the MOD to make sure it functions, and with the MOD Pre-Validator and AutoMOD
* Ask the community for feedback and to help test (in the MODs in Development forum)

The MOD Team runs a MOD pre-validation script, which checks for common errors using the MOD Pre-Validator and AutoMOD.
The actual code validation looks through the code of the MOD line-by-line, making sure that the MOD fits the description and the license is compatible with the GPL. The coding guidelines are checked, as is possible security issues (SQL injections, XSS, etc.), and ensuring that the MOD satisfies the MOD Database guidelines. The team also gives suggestions to MOD authors on how they can optimize their code, and follow proper English spelling.

Testing is done by Junior MOD validators (which allows the full team members to be able to do the line-by-line validation on more MODs). This process includes installing with AutoMOD and ensuring that the MOD works as advertised and avoids conflicts with other MODs.

There are a few options for when the MOD is validated: approve it, deny it, insta-deny it (if pre-validation failed), or repack it (if there are only minor issues that need to be fixed). “Anything larger than something small is deny-worthy.” Insta-denying is not automatic, it’s a case-by-case decision

Advantages of using the MOD Database: You get a free security audit of your code, plus phpBB.com is hosting your MOD downloads, Screenshots, FAQ, and Support forum. It’s also the best way to get exposure for your MOD to the phpBB community.

Sam and Igor present on MOD Team Tools:
MODX is a MOD packaging format, originally based on the phpBB2-era text template. The XML-based file contains all of the code and instructions for modifying phpBB. It’s a pain to write by hand, because it’s a machine-readable format, but there are a number of tools for generating it. (Also, MODX 2.0 is coming soon…)

Modxed by APTX is written in C++, plus tumba25 has a Web-Based Creator which is a GUI for creating MODs. These are both creation tools.
There are also generators which create MODX files from a diff between a vanilla phpBB and a modified phpBB. AcydBurn has a MODX Changes Generator, eviL<3 has a Mod_diff tool, nadverman has a Token based version, and tumba25 has a MODX Generator which also supports in-lines and dynamic context.

Another tool is the Unified MOD Install Library (UMIL) which provides abstraction for database changes — 1.0 largely written by EXreaction and Highway of Life. AutoMOD uses it for installation, and it is used and well-accepted within the MODding community. UMIL will be included with phpBB 3.1 (tentative), and UMIL 2.0 is in development. Still accepting ideas for the new version; there’s no ETA for release yet.

phpBB QuickInstall is a tool written by eviL<3 and is now maintained by tumba25. It allows for a quick one-click installation of phpBB3 (for testing purposes), and lets you manage multiple boards, each with its own codeset. phpBB QuickInstall is available in phpBB2 and phpBB3 versions, and also installs AutoMOD by default.

The MOD Pre-Validator (MPV) was written by the MOD Team (smithy_dll, Vic D’Elfant, Paul, eviL<3, and DavidIQ), which originated from an old C# tool called EAL. It provides a static analysis of the MOD files to provide hints on what could be improved. MPV was open-sourced a year and a half ago, plus there’s a hosted version on phpBB.com. Titania (being discussed later today) performs an MPV check automatically.

So how do these tools work together? First you can set up a phpBB QuickInstall, where you can then apply your changes to the phpBB codebase. Then use the MODX Generator to create a diff that you can add to the MODX Creator to add metadata, then use UMIL to prepare the necessary database changes, and finally use AutoMOD to test your MOD to make sure it works properly.

Sam present on Getting Involved, substituting for Jeremy:
The MOD Team exists because of phpBB’s strong MODding community. So how can new users get involved, what can more experienced users do?
Community mainly hangs out in the 3.0.x Modifications Forums, often providing help for each other on developers. New users can get involved by helping users out in the forums, or by posting new MODs in the MODs in Development forum. If you’re a more experienced user, apply to become a Junior Validator. (This is a great path to get on-track to becoming a full MOD Team member.) Simple application to apply for Junior Validator time.
Making your own MOD is much easier thanks to the new Customization Database (more later today) — submit your MOD and hope it gets validated!
Contribute to the Wiki and the MOD Writers Library. (Note: The wiki will be moving back to MediaWiki due to popular demand.)
Finally, help spread the word about the MODding community! Tell people that you write MODs for phpBB.
Want to try something new? Start writing Bridges between phpBB and other platforms — a new section of the Customization Database. (Breaking News: Cullen Walsh (ckwalsh) will be releasing a pre-release version of his Drupal-phpBB bridge later today!)

Q&A
The phpBB MOD Database has existed since 2001. When phpBB 2.0.0 was release, “hacks” were renamed MODs and were directly integrated into the main phpBB website.

Summer of MODs
Winners are Precise Similar Topics II by VSE and Thanks for posts (rating edition) (WordPress can’t display the username of the author).

Special Announcements
Rich McGirr (RMcGirr83), a long-time Junior Validator, was surprised with the announcement that he has been promoted to a full member of the MOD Team.

Session: phpBB Development Update & Roadmap by Nils Adermann and Chris Smith
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 9:30-10:10 AM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

Nils to talk about how phpBB development has changed over the past two years, and why these changes have been made.

In the past, phpBB development was a top-down process, decided by a few people with no outside input. This worked well in the beginning of phpBB when it was smaller, but as the project grew, it outgrew its development process. This caused development to dramatically slow down. Dev Team is now trying to encourage a more open, more democratic process, and get more people involved in development. While not everyone will want to join, Dev Team wants everyone to be represented in the dev process.

Steps that have been taken:
* Introducing Git (using GitHub) as version control for phpBB
* Area51 discussion forums now allow for more discussion of new features, the Request for Comments (RFC) process
* New bug tracker
* Bamboo = continuous integration platform (going to be using a lot more in the future)

Walking Through the Development Process
1) Someone (a user, MOD author, etc.) has an idea for a change or improvement or new feature
2) File a ticket on the tracker, which puts it on the radar for development (new tracker is an improvement for the Development Team, easier for them to better manage a larger number of tickets — Dev Team is going to try to improve it for the users side)
3) RFCs for discussion of these features — this is new to phpBB, process is still being worked out (i.e. the subsilver2 debacle)
By the way, subsilver2 will still be maintained going forward with a provided upgrade path, but will not be bundled with phpBB 3.1 anymore and will only be downloadable from the Styles DB.
The goal for RFCs is to reach a consensus for general acceptance of the change.
4) Patches — While RFCs are for bigger changes, all changes will need to have a patch. Patches can be written by anyone. Anyone can help implement new ideas in phpBB, which is great if Dev Team members don’t want to take time to implement a feature, but a member of the community wants to see it happen.
Even if the Dev Team members don’t think a feature is important, if the feature does well in the RFC process and a patch is submitted (and works), it will go into the phpBB software.
5) Merging — This is done by the Development Team, where patches & feature branches are merged into release branches. Using Git helps the Dev Team better manage this model of development.
6) Releasing — The Dev Team now uses feature freezes to expedite the development process.

This means that there will be more frequent releases, though they will have fewer features. However hopefully this will end the process of having many years between 3.x releases. The reason it’s been nearly three years since 3.0.0 is because the teams started to fall into the “practically rewriting the entire thing” trap that caught them during the 3.0 development process — last year they decided to scrap that completely and start over with a more realistic goal.

What’s Coming in 3.1 Ascraeus for Developers
Chris Smith presents this part.
* New Coding Guidelines! Classes will be phpbb_ prefixed. Not using eval() anywhere, which will not be permitted by MOD authors. Using newlines at the end of files. Bye bye closing ?&rt PHP tag, which is not needed in straight-up PHP files.
* Hooks (to be described later today)
* New BBCode Engine, stack-based as opposed to a series of regular expressions. All core BBCodes will also be custom BBCodes.
* New Template Engine, implemented as a PHP string filter, dramatically improving memory consumption when compiling template files. Provides a nice performance improvement.
* Request Class which replaces the request_var() function. Use to retrieve the $_POST $_GET $_COOKIE superglobal values, since the superglobals themselves will be overwritten. Also compatibility for bridges & wrapping phpBB.
* Modular Cron allows the cron processes to be extendable by MOD authors. At the moment this is entirely community-developed, no developer has written code for this so far.

What’s Coming for phpBB Administrators
* Now supports SQLite 3 (thanks to dropping PHP4 support)
* Integrating AutoMOD directly into the core (more on that later today)
* Improved Team page (list of administrators & moderators), whereas this is static in 3.0.x, it will be admin-configurable in 3.1
* User Pruning — big improvement for pruning out lots of users, i.e. spambots

Coming for phpBB End-Users
* Gravatar support built-in (which is great for reducing avatar load on the admin’s server)
* Soft Delete, so that simply clicking Delete (by a moderator) will preserve posts in a hidden trash can
* Full timezone support (using PHP datetime functions), including automatic Daylight Savings Time transition
* Resume downloads of attachments (saving bandwidth for everyone)

This list is non-exhaustive, Nils recently blogged a more complete list of features coming in 3.1.

Session: Building phpBB4 on Symfony 2 by Fabien Potencier
Date/Time: Saturday 8/21 at 11:10 AM-12:10 PM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

This presentation will be similar to yesterday’s presentation about Symfony 2, but not as much specific code demos. First, a quick look at Symfony 1 vs. Symfony 2.

Symfony’s goal is to allow developers to make better applications faster, and has been designed to be the best possible platform to create end-user websites and applications such as phpBB. Symfony uses an MVC (model-view-controller) framework. Symfony has a concept of a “slot” to defined content areas within the layout of your application. PHP can be used for templates, or an end-user templating engine can be used.
The Routing system in Symfony allows a single PHP file under the front-facing directory to be the front-controller, which provides for a much more user-friendly output of content. Showing an example of URL rewriting with this architecture.
Configuration in Symfony can be done using YAML, XML, or plain PHP formats.
The routing system means that templates never have to generate a URL, simply use the built-in routing methods to handle this process.

Bundles provides flexibility for the routing system — act somewhat like plugins, but Symfony bundles are treated like “first-class citizens.” Everything in Symfony is constructed as a bundle, structured as sets of files.

Environments allow for different modes/views depending on what process of the site development you’re in (i.e. Development Environment, Staging Environment, and Production Environment). You can also create your own custom environments.

Symfony provides Developer Tools to help debug problems faster. This includes a logging mechanism, the developer toolbar, etc.

Security is really important for Symfony (and phpBB), and processes are built-in to protect from XSS, CSRF, and SQL injections using built-in automatic escaping, if you ask for it in the code. Symfony 2 allows for creating an Apache environment variable in a .htaccess or httpd.conf file, which can be accessed in the database configuration file, helping to keep the information in different places for improved security.

Symfony uses PHPUnit for unit testing (like phpBB), and also provides functional tests to allow for testing your application.

Caching in Symfony is rather unique — Symfony actually relies on HTTP caching rather than provide its own system. ESI (Edge Side Includes) is a specification from 2001 implemented partially in Symfony 2.

Last but not least: HttpKernel is the construction kit for the framework and provides a lot of the architecture and building blocks used to create Symfony’s MVC framework. It’s a basic interface with a single handle() method, which can be used to build a framework compatible with Symfony 2. Going a step further by extending the interface provides a lot more power, including features such as the caching, the web developer toolbar, etc. This relies on an event system to roll through the model-view-controller architecture.

Stefan Koopmanschap is going to talk a bit about the Symfony community and how you can ask questions & get answers about Symfony, knowing that there will be many questions about it as phpBB starts integrating it.
* #symfony IRC channel on freenode (very friendly for new people, but be clear in what you’re looking for!)
* Symfony forums (which happen to be powered by phpBB)
* Symfony Google groups, the most important is the symfony-users group
* Ask a question about Symfony on Twitter (if you can get your question in 140 characters!)
* Symfony is probably the best-documented PHP framework right now

Q&A
Question to Nils: phpBB decided to start using a framework in order to not have to reinvent the wheel. Allows the development team to focus on actually building the application rather than the underlying framework.
Why Symfony? A few very technical reasons. phpBB4 wanted to be very future-proof, with a framework that’s not based at all on PHP4 code and was really something new. “If that’s one of your points, then there’s not a whole lot of frameworks left.” A couple of other ideas for phpBB4, some of which are listed on the Development Wiki, meant that the Dev Team decided to choose Symfony 2.
The benefits here are primarily for developers and MOD authors. MOD authors will see lots of differences because of the improved focus on modularity and extendability. phpBB4 seeks to eliminate having to modify core code, with a true plugin-style architecture that avoids changing lines of core code and prevents MOD conflicts. Also other bundles, not directly related to phpBB (i.e. the Blog MOD) can benefit from much tighter integration with phpBB without having to write them specifically for phpBB.

Session: Doctrine 2 by Jonathan Wage
Date/Time: Friday 8/20 at 2:00-2:45 PM

This post contains my rough crib-notes from this presentation at Libertyvasion 2010. The post has not been proof-read for spelling, grammar, or accuracy.

Jonathan Wage, has been a web developer for over a decade. An Open Source Evangelist and published author, contributes to Doctrine and Symfony, and is employed by Sensio Labs.

Doctrine started on April 13, 2006 (first commit), and first stable version released September 1, 2008. It was one of the first Object Relational Mapper (ORM) implementations for PHP. Version 1.0, maintained until 3/1/10, has been integrated with a number of popular frameworks, including Symfony.

What’s an Object Relational Mapper?
Shows the definition coming straight off of Wikipedia. Essentially it creates a virtual object database for interacting between a database and an object-oriented programming language, such as PHP.

Jonathan is showing off how Doctrine 1 worked, but pointing out some problems: The domain is bound to the persistence layer, the complexity of domain entities is limited by the persistence layer, $model->save() is a bottle neck for persisting large numbers of objects, and testing your domain model requires mocking the persistence layer.

Doctrine 2 aims to solve a lot of those problems. No more base class to extend; you’re simply working with regular PHP objects, classes, and properties. Base tables & domain entities no longer bound to the persistence layer. Can specify mapping information with XML, YAML, or DocBlock Annotations in PHP, and Jonathan explains the advantages & disadvantages of each. XML is his preferred method.

Transparent Persistence is the #1 rule followed in Doctrine 2. No dependencies to the persistence layer should exist, meaning that testing can happen directly with PHPUnit. Doctrine can persist an object simply by passing an instantiated object to a persist() method.

Why Transparency?
* Better performance
* Easier to cache regular PHP objects that are not bound to the persistence layer
* Easier to test your domain, no mocking required
* Ultimate flexibility over the complexity of your domain entities without being imposed on by your persistence layer

Doctrine 1 benefited greatly from using PHP 5.3 in terms of speed & memory usage in testing. Doctrine 2 is about 2-3 times faster than Doctrine 1. Doctrine 2 also fully uses & supports namespaces, making it much easier to combine libraries by virtually eliminating naming conflicts. Doctrine 2 (& Symfony 2) also fully supports PHP 5.3 Interoperability Standards (link coming).

Doctrine code is divided into a few different packages:
* Doctrine\Common — Common functionality shared across packages, Events, Annotations Library, Lexer Parser for the Doctrine Query Language (DQL), Other various convenience tools
* Doctrine\DBAL — Relational database abstraction layer (MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MsSQL), can also write drivers for other databases — DBAL is Standalone, can be used without the ORM
* Schema Manager — Issue DDL statements through intuitive APIs, introspect your database scheme as well
* Doctrine\ORM (the “killer feature” of Doctrine) — Built on top of the DBAL

The architecture of Doctrine 2:
* The ObjectManager: EntityManager and DocumentManager
* Object States: Objects can be New, Managed, Detached, or Removed

The Doctrine Query Language (DQL) is the killer ORM feature. It’s similar to SQL, and is a proprietary object query language. Instead of working with tables and columns, you’re working with objects and fields. Doctrine 2 parses it with a recursive descent parser (giving you good parse errors if you mess up). Doctrine constructs an abstract syntax table (AST) when parsing the DQL query, which generates the full SQL query for the relational database being used. The DQL parser also has every piece of the language represented by its own class in its own file, so it’s easy to discover and learn the language (i.e. OrderByClause.php, SelectClause.php, etc.). Parsing of the DQL is also cached to improve performance.

Jonathan shows and explains a DQL query, which looks very much like SQL, however he’s pointing out how doing a LEFT JOIN is easier because you don’t need to explain in the query how to map the two together, since Doctrine has already mapped them. Doctrine also has a result cache method so that the results of the query are stored in a cache driver instead of the database. Events can be set up to automatically clear the cache when the data gets changed.

The Doctrine features are tightly integrated with Symfony 2 — simply enabling the DBAL and ORM services in the Symfony configuration is all that needs to happen.

In Conclusion: Why use an ORM?
* Encapsulation of your domain logic in one place
* This improves Maintainability
* Testability is improved because of this maintainability
* Portability for portable & thin application controller code and fat models

• Hansen as miserable as ever #motd #
• @kevr1990 @djbentley City at home was our worst wasn't it? #twitterclarets in reply to kevr1990 #
• West Brom will be shattered to bits after that #motd #
• Wigan don't believe in defending, obviously #motd #
• Not sure I like that new MOTD title sequence. The CGI isn't quite there yet, seems a bit jumpy. Donkey lashers on first #motd #
• @NickBFC75 Doubt it, they aren't going to win 4-0 every week. They are going to be on the end of some hammerings like West Brom today in reply to NickBFC75 #
• How many will Chelsea score? #
• @Josh_Hodkinson Can't be any worse than Wigans earlier on in reply to Josh_Hodkinson #
• Preston. League 1 football awaits. #twitterclarets #
• I'll take a point from that. Good result. #twitterclarets #
• We're gunna score from a corner, score from a corner! #twitterclarets #
• 1-1. Thank God for that. #twitterclarets #
• @NoNayNeverNet One game in a season, don't get ahead of yourselves. Still think they don't have a chance, Wigan had a shocker today. in reply to NoNayNeverNet #
• Bollocks. #twitterclarets #
• @blesta Cheers, dropped an email to sales@blesta.com in reply to blesta #
• Down to 10 men. Edgar off. #twitterclarets #
• What odds would you have got for Blackpool winning 4-0 this morning? #
• @blesta Is MinPHP ready for showtime yet? Need a PHP framework for a project fairly soon and I'd like to give yours a go first #
• @davidtwhitters He's go "Social Media? Doesn't that happen down the pub?" in reply to davidtwhitters #
• @kevr1990 @davidtwhitters What is it with ClaretTony and his henchmen? That board seems to remove anything he doesn't agree with #
• Why do banks say "Congratuations" like you've won the lottery when you apply for something and they accept #
• http://bit.ly/cVJk7P #f1 #alonso #sniffpetrol #
• @iainblackburn Already had SSN on at 22:30 for that in reply to iainblackburn #
• Football League Show on at 11:50pm on Saturday #
• No idea why I'm watching this League Cup show… #
• Morcambe v Burnley #twitterclarets #
• @NickBFC75 Thanks for reminding me in reply to NickBFC75 #
• Well, we all know why O'Neill has quit Villa don't we… #eng #
• @davidtwhitters I don't know, but obviously there is a huge amount of pressure around that area for a footballer in reply to davidtwhitters #
• @davidtwhitters Isn't that going to open the potential for damage around the repaired area if it's weaker than the fix? in reply to davidtwhitters #
• @davidtwhitters I'm no expert but if it goes once surely there is a higher chance of it going again, even with surgery? in reply to davidtwhitters #
• @kevr1990 I don't think he'll ever play in a Burnley shirt again #twitterclarets in reply to kevr1990 #
• McCann out for 6 months http://bit.ly/aibNgD #twitterclarets #
• Look what arrived today http://twitpic.com/2doicd #twitterclarets #
• @djbentley He sounds more educated than half on ClaretsMad in reply to djbentley #
• @beckybfc You certainly get around the world a bit don't you in reply to beckybfc #
• @MaryLNaylor You didn't miss much, 3 points for us. Man Utd v Chelsea was a good game though, we've got Ipswich this weekend in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor Missing the start of the season to go on holiday? Hope you're having a nice time in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• Going to use Redmine under Ubuntu and apt because installing in Debian Stable is like pulling eyeballs out of sockets #
• @JamboTheJourno Hard life isn't it? in reply to JamboTheJourno #
• "I'd really only ever leave Bolton for Celtic or Villa" Mr J Coyle #twitterclarets #
• @stickerboy It never gets any better, you just get more knowledgable about the problems in reply to stickerboy #
• "Steve Cottrill. Bright young manager." Erm… #twitterclarets #
• £5 free bet on Stevenage to win tonight. Do me proud. #
• @MonkeysBrother Yeah, from both sets of fans. That would be a no win situation on any level. Let's see if Coyle has any money to spend in reply to MonkeysBrother #
• @MonkeysBrother Surely he's more likely to go to Bolton than Blackburn? Not exactly a Fat Sam style player in reply to MonkeysBrother #
• @MonkeysBrother Source? in reply to MonkeysBrother #
• What happened at Villa then? #
• RT @JacquiOatley: Millwall fan seriously hurt after Bristol City match – this footage sent in by a BBC viewer http://ow.ly/2mVDr #
• Ian Holloway: 'I looked at the fixtures and said: 'My God, where are we going to get 10 points from?' http://bit.ly/9tpXwx #
• @NickBFC75 You already know the answer to that question before you asked it in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @NickBFC75 Probably not as rude as it sounds in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @OptaJoe Any stats on Scholes and tackling? in reply to OptaJoe #
• @djbentley How big are his fingers compared to his nose? #twitterclarets in reply to djbentley #
• @kevr1990 @davidtwhitters @djbentley With an attitude like that you can understand why he'll find it difficult getting a move anywhere #
• @djbentley @kevr1990 @davidtwhitters Consensus is he needs to go, question is who's going to take him off our hands? in reply to djbentley #
• @davidtwhitters If the club has any sense they'll be seeking someone to send him to for a reasonable price in reply to davidtwhitters #
• @djbentley @davidtwhitters Burnley FC PR department need to have a quiet word in his shell in reply to djbentley #
• Get the chequebook out Barry http://bit.ly/cc9QlT #twitterclarets #
• @missclaretnblue Yeah, back to finish the job before our next home fixture from what I understand in reply to missclaretnblue #
• @claretsgirl It was cutting up all over the show, players digging it back down during the match in reply to claretsgirl #
• @claretsgirl They've relaid it with this plastic stuff but it hasn't been finished on time, machines went to Wembley apparently so a mess in reply to claretsgirl #
• @claretsgirl Iwelumo, great build up play and cross by Elliot. Other than that, pretty scrappy to be honest. Pitch looks a state in reply to claretsgirl #
• @claretsgirl We won 1-0 in reply to claretsgirl #
• Sneering by Hansen aside, I miss MOTD #twitterclarets #

With every conference each attended faces at least once the problem that there are multiple interesting talks you'd like to attend at the same time. Since splitting yourself is still not an option (although, I'm pretty sure that someone is working really hard on solving that problem right now) I'm always extremely happy when I see some sort of video equipment in the session rooms since then I can probably watch all these missed talks later on.

And now I can finally watch for instance the Guardian talk I missed at EuroPython2010 thanks to the work of Michael Shanks et al. on blip.tv :D

"EuroPython2010 videos online" was written by Horst Gutmann and is licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Austria License.

Better late than never, I guess. It's now been two weeks since this year's EuroPython in Birmingham (UK) ended and I somehow never found to time to write at least a short summary. Well, at least now I will try to write a not so short summary instead :-)

Compared to most other conferences I've attended in recent years this was by far the longest. I've so far never been at a conference with 4 days full of talks and while I couldn't even listen to one talk in each slot, I still managed to learn many, many new and exciting things (at least to me). But let's go through the program day by day... or at least only through the most memorable talks.

Day 0: Getting there

Getting to Birmingham from Graz is actually pretty straight forward thanks to Lufthansa offering an easy two-step flight via Frankfurt. And after that getting from Birmingham International right into the heart of the city is thanks to some nice train connections a piece of cake as well :-) Luckily, the hotel (Premier Inn Broad Street) was only about 10 minutes away from New Street Station so I could at least dump my suite-case and exchange my messenger bag with my camera bag before heading back to the airport to meet up with Jannis.

There, I couldn't resist taking another Tropicana-shots ;-) Sadly this was the only time I had one of the delicious drinks and my camera with me.

After getting all suite-cases and bags out of our way we met up with Raymond Hettinger, his wife Rachel et al. and enjoyed some great burgers at the Handmade Burger Co just 5 minutes away from the Premier Inn. After having our stomachs filled Jannis and I went to the Walkabout hoping I could get some of their great fudge cake. Well, no fudge cake for me but we managed to get the word out via Twitter and IRC and eventually got about about half a dozen people to join us.

Day 1: Let the talks begin

The first proper talk for me, after attending Russel Winder's keynotes, was "Idiomatic Python" by Raymond Hettinger where he promised we would learn something new on about every slide. And he really delivered! Naturally at least some portion of the presentation was about Python's core container classes and the new additions in Python >2.6 but there were also other goodies like some iterator magic and the rather unknown else-branch of for-loops.

As in 2008 I had to attend a talk by Zeth. For some reason he always managed to talk about stuff that I'm also interested in. This time his talk was about some basics around the Semantic Web and getting started with tools like the rdflib. Weird enough, I bought a book about programming the Semantic Web just minutes before at the O'Reilly booth ;-)

The last talk of the day was by David Read about Open Data and data.gov.uk, another data that I'm currently at least a bit into (would love to be more involved by I don't have time for even the stuff that I'd die to be involved right now :-P) since there is a similar trend getting under way in Austria.

Day 2: More talks

On the second day I managed to attend talks I was mostly not all that interested in with the exception of Raymond Hettinger's second talk which, once again, was very insightful. That and the keynotes by Bruce Lawson that focused mostly on HTML5 and how the whole web application market will and is changing thanks to it.

The rest of the day I mostly spent looking for an available power-plug and working WiFi :-(

After the talks I went among other places to the Wellington for some nice beers (and WiFi) to meet up with Jannis, Arthur, Armin, Georg, Jiri, Ales.

Day 3: Even more talks

You should have noticed a pattern by now: Raymond Hettinger's talks are great and you should attend every single one of them if you have the change. Day 3 saw another one of his talks, this time about Monocle, an event-driven framework. Another highlight (of the whole conference) was Michael Brunton-Spall's session about how the Guardian uses Google AppEngine and Google Docs. Thanks to that talk I learnt about the Guardian's Datablog which is a place for all you data-/statistics-nerds out there :-)

The last talk of the day was about the Flatland form processing library by Scott Wilson, which I immediately fell in love with :D It is a bit more low-level compared to Django's form package but looks like just the right tool for projects using Pylons, Flask etc.

Day 4: The end

I'm not yet sure which one of Michael Brunton-Spall's talks I missed: The one on day 3 or the one on day 4 about the Guardian's API, but I really regret missing it :-) Anyway, the last 2 talks of this year's EuroPython for me were by Denis Bilenko about gevent and Michael Sparks about Arduino. Both were great and in the future probably will cause another large chunk of my not-existing free-time to miraculously disappear ;-)

But before the conference ended there was another huge lightning talk-session (nearly 2 hours) with an evil VGA cable killing one laptop after the other ;-)

As evening program Jannis, Armin and I had planned to watch Inception at the local IMAX theatre but since the movie was still hours away we opted for some food first. Luckily we found a great restaurant only minutes away from our hotel right next to the Mailbox called Kinnaree Sawasdee which offered great Thai cuisine and also quite exotic beer.

And, I guess, I don't have to write anything about "Inception" ;-) I've you haven't watched it by now, then what are you waiting for?!

Day 5 & 6: Sprints

Once again I did some sprinting on some Django bugs and worked a bit on some private projects I wanted to get done eventually ... (they are still not done). After the 2nd sprint day with everyone else already on their way back home I figured I could use my last couple of hours in Birmingham to take some pictures of some of the places I've visited during that week and forgot to have my camera with me :-)

Day 7: Getting home

My flight was leaving at about 1830 so I still had some time after having to leave the hotel and having to be at the airport. Sitting on some park benches or in New Street Station and reading some books or chatting thanks to the great BT OpenZone network works quite well then :-)

What was great

• The talks were mostly great (sadly with some promotion focused ones in between)
• Compared to some other conferences the food was quite good :-)
• The hotel: The Premier Inn Broad Street is really a nice place to stay if you're attending a conference in the Birmingham Conservatoire.
• The city in general. I really like Birmingham :-)
• Airport security: Thanks to all the fine ladies and gentlemen at airports Birmingham and Frankfurt who were really friendly even when they had to search my bags in detail. Yes: mice getting weirder and weirder every year :-)

What was not so great

• The WiFi: Sorry, but this was by far the worst connectivity I've ever had at a conference. And it didn't really help that the Birmingham Conservatoire is like a bunker not letting any OpenZone in.
• I eventually really have to get something else than my power-adapter-ninja-star...
• I managed to kill another headphones cable on the flight to Birmingham.

So, that was EuroPython 2010. Great conference despite its problems (WiFi) with many great people :D Now I can't wait to next year's in Florence, Italy.

"EuroPython 2010" was written by Horst Gutmann and is licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Austria License.

• @kevr1990 Coke always in reply to kevr1990 #
• @JamboTheJourno Wait until it drops off in reply to JamboTheJourno #
• @kevr1990 He's not serious about TV heaven being Coronation Street is he? #twitterclarets in reply to kevr1990 #
• @kevr1990 Wasn't Rocky was it? in reply to kevr1990 #
• Big Leeds. Ha ha ha. #
• I hope Derby put 25 past "big" Leeds #
• E I E I E I O, up the football league we go! #twitterclarets #
• http://bit.ly/cYiy5E Wrong on so many levels #
• @NickBFC75 @hall_mj smutty in reply to NickBFC75 #
• Final bets please on league position at the end of the season #twitterclarets #
• @VirginRacing Twitter trying to turn into Facebook. Very annoying in reply to VirginRacing #
• 29-4. Shocking. #
• Pakistan 12-3 #eng #
• Settle down to a bit of cricket #
• @jamesbird Problem is, even if that wasn't the case everybody thinks that it is. Bit of a PR disaster, see thread on CM http://bit.ly/90apWf in reply to jamesbird #
• @jamesbird wouldn't have wanted to do a deal, but if the club has set such a high price that they can't do it then it's sad for the fans in reply to jamesbird #
• @jamesbird My understanding was the club wanted to hold onto commentary rights to push everyone to the website. I don't believe that 2BR… in reply to jamesbird #
• @iainblackburn Should do, will be surprised and disappointed if we don't end up in the top 6 come the end of the season in reply to iainblackburn #
• Toy Story 3: Quality film. If you haven't seen it yet, go #toystory3 #
• In the cinema waiting for toy story 3 #
• BIt of a miserable effort to cut the 2BR radio commentary from the club to plug ClaretsWorld (which is pretty poor anyway) #twitterclarets #
• @NickBFC75 Eyes back in your head in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @realsamengland Hi, any chance of a follow so I can send you a DM regarding your project in reply to realsamengland #
• http://bit.ly/cwAsxJ #
• hehe, shifted 399,000MB down my ADSL line last month. That's a lot of bandwidth #
• @Kayako Any ETA on V4? Love the software, just holding out for your per seat licensing to come in #
• @samuelmarsden @kevr1990 @djbentley @JamboTheJourno If I can do anything to help with the #twitterclarets site let me know #
• @MarkTheDaemon You can't be that pissed either, haven't made any typos in reply to MarkTheDaemon #
• @MATTYB00SH Stella in reply to MATTYB00SH #
• @davidtwhitters I've never met him but I get the impression not many people have very many good words to say about him in reply to davidtwhitters #
• How did Tony get the gig writing for the Guardian about Burnley – have they seen the CM messageboard? http://bit.ly/9Fgaqh #

I’m sure I’m not alone in seeing this new spammer tactic… I called it delayed spam. How does it work?

A spammer registers on a board. They might not do anything for a while. Then they try to post something that looks legitimate, using generic language that could be appropriate anywhere. Stuff like:

You make some good points, please keep posting

I find your arguments compelling, can you link your sources?

Thanks, it helped me

None of those add anything to the discussion, but they’re not really spam. What happens next? The spammer goes quiet for a few weeks, hoping that the topics they have posted in will fade from the front page. Then they carefully go back in and edit their post. They might change the text of the post itself, or they might add a signature that wasn’t there before. They are relying on the fact that phpBB (and other boards as well) do not bump a post back to the front page if something is edited, only if new content is added.

Very frustrating.

So far I have not come up with a programmatic solution to the problem. I am working on code that will capture the edit history of a post and allow board moderators to revert to an original version, so that at least would let me prove how the spammer added their content after the fact. That doesn’t solve the problem, it just provides an audit trail should I decide to try to take action against the spammer.

A frequent suggestion at this point might be something along the lines of preventing someone from posting URLs or links until they reach a certain level of post. That doesn’t help either, as the spammers often have five or ten posts under their belt before they come back and edit. Plus it impacts the legitimate new users that come on board with questions that require links. It’s not my favorite concept.

So today what my moderator team does is a manual process. When we get a suspected spammer, they will do a web search for either their username, their email address, or both. If they find the same username on hundreds of different boards that’s a good indication they’re a spammer, especially if the user is recently registered on all of them. They can also pull up posts from the user on these other boards. If they look similar to what they’re posting on our board, that’s another indication. All of these steps are used to decide whether to preemptively ban the spammer before they spam, or decide to wait.

It’s all a manual process for now. So while I’ve been away from phpBB2 for a while because of other demands on my time, this has never really been far from my mind. I just haven’t come up with an idea that can be implemented in code versus a manual process.

Guess I should check in with the BB Protection folks, and see what they’re up to at this point.

• @adamzander Not only that, he can only do as much as the board allows him to. If they want to not buy any talent then they won't go anywhere in reply to adamzander #
• @adamzander They probably did, but then again we did make an effort to get the chequebook out and keep our squad. They haven't. in reply to adamzander #
• @adamzander Well, surely they have to get more than Derby's record. Then again, it's doubtful. I really don't know what will happen in reply to adamzander #
• http://bit.ly/c3raeq Skint #
• @MaryLNaylor You still on holiday? in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor You've already broken that rule then I'm pretty sure you aren't the only person called Mary on the internet though in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @adamzander Yeah, I just haven't seen any intense discussions about what's going on with it in reply to adamzander #
• @adamzander What are these intense discussions about a #twitterclarets fansite you speak of? in reply to adamzander #
• http://bit.ly/9jGthx What braindead idiot would pay 32 quid for Sky Sports 1 + 2 on Freeview. For a couple quid more you can get the works #
• http://bit.ly/9gBWSM #ferrari #f1 #alonso #massa #
• @adamzander Ta for the #ff in reply to adamzander #
• Firefox, your memory usage is utter shite. Sort it out please, 1GB for a browser is taking the piss. #firefox http://yfrog.com/209epgj #
• http://bit.ly/asQTUI Get voting for Grezza #twitterclarets #
• Why don't they close BBC channels with the national anthem before switching to news channel? Like the good old days #bbc #
• @JamboTheJourno Sent you an email about the #twitterclarets fansite in reply to JamboTheJourno #
• RT @JamboTheJourno: Can all the #twitterclarets who showed an interest in a new Burnley fansite drop me a line to jamies88@gmail.com please. #
• Morning all *yawn* #
• http://twitpic.com/291lce #homescreen #
• @samuelmarsden http://bit.ly/15q6bv Fantasy Premier League, will DM you the group code. @Fletchian66 has set it all up in reply to samuelmarsden #
• Has somebody put something in the water? RT @NickBFC75: Calm down #twitterclarets ! #
• http://bit.ly/9HuKzm Ferrari have form for this kind of thing. Naughty boys. #f1 #cheatingferrari #
• @ahBFC DMed you in reply to ahBFC #

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Music by Wim Mertens

Swimming in the Mandelbulb reef.

• @MaryLNaylor night night x in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor lol, love parents and technology. They never mix well in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor I'm surprised you remembered that much Hope you gave the Rovers fan a bit of banter back in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor Good to hear you took the Burnley shirt as well, meet any fellow clarets out there? #
• @MaryLNaylor lol, you'd better hope she doesn't read your tweets then in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor You went to Greece didn't you? How was it, have a nice time? in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• @MaryLNaylor You've only just been on holiday haven't you? Alright for some, all this going away in reply to MaryLNaylor #
• FT. We've won the SIngapore pot 1-0. Time to come home and play like that in the league lads #twitterclarets #
• @claretsgirl 11 in Singapore, something like 16 total in reply to claretsgirl #
• Burnley 1-0 up against the Singapore lot. 50 minutes, Eagles #twitterclarets #
• @Kurbz69 We can't be that serious about signing him if we've had 3 offers turned down. Makes us look a bit daft to be honest #twitterclarets in reply to Kurbz69 #
• @kevr1990 Moral of the story: Don't share in reply to kevr1990 #
• Don't forget to join the fantasy league #twitterclarets #
• @Fletchian66 Cheers signed up. We should sort out a bit of a sweepstake for the winner in reply to Fletchian66 #
• @Fletchian66 Are you running the #twitterclarets fantasy league? #
• @cs278 You turning into Mr J Clarkson? in reply to cs278 #
• @5LiveF1 Get Karun booked if he's ever available again. He's a class act, really enjoyed the commentary today between the three of you in reply to 5LiveF1 #
• @karunchandhok Great effort this morning, really enjoyed your commentary. You should do it more often in reply to karunchandhok #
• @ahBFC If you want to do a guest post on something let me know. If it's a regular thing I'll set you up a contributor account on the blog in reply to ahBFC #
• @footballutd Maybe you can, will send you a DM in reply to footballutd #
• I don't understand why people running football clubs think they are exempt from paying their tax bills… #
• @OfficialMGP He got sent out on full wets, not inters and was dog slow in reply to OfficialMGP #
• We never do this well during pre-season. What's going on? #twitterclarets #
• Not being funny but Flash crashes loads more since Firefox introduced the crash plugin into FF4. Fail. #firefox4 #
• Sodastream? I thought we'd killed that off 20 years ago #
• Big society. Big bollocks. #condemnation #
• 305MB download for a signal hotfix? Apple, you take the piss #iphone #
• @SyntaxError90 Got any technical documents or code for openflame, need a small CMS that actually works in reply to SyntaxError90 #

• @beckybfc Where are you in the world at the moment? in reply to beckybfc #
• http://yfrog.com/5cy8wvj Like the site redesign #bbcnewssite but that whitespace in the middle of the page looks so poor, bad design #
• @missclaretnblue Surely your cooking can't be that bad to make a pot noodle a better option? in reply to missclaretnblue #
• @NickBFC75 Cheers for the #ff in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @NickBFC75 Was looking for a bit more info than that . He was in the youth setup at Portsmouth but they've released all their youth in reply to NickBFC75 #
• Paris Cowan-Hall, what does anybody know about him then? #twitterclarets #
• @ahBFC Come on, exclusive #twitterclarets reveal for the real fans. If he's playing someone will work out who he is, are you at Buxton? #
• Well, that's a first – a player actually wanting to stay with Burnley. Interesting decision, he probably doesn't like the cold up there #
• RT @Fletchian66: 1-0 Oldham mistake by Elliott #twitterclarets #
• Well, #twitterclarets – be thankful we didn't make a show of ourselves at the start of our PL campaign and had a stand http://bit.ly/byGDQH #
• http://bit.ly/bsCPjO Great blog on the technical aspects of the BBC world cup site if you're interested in that kind of thing #bbcworldcup #
• RT @MarkTheDaemon: New blog post: Bury v Burnley – Match Review http://bit.ly/dxoe2E #twitterclarets #
• Just watching the F1 forum – @jakehumphreyf1 you should bring Muray to every race #
• BBC do a good range of credit montages at the end of big sporting events #
• This game is a struggle. #worldcup #
• Coaches on the touchline: "Take his legs. I said TAKE HIS LEGS!". Webb's pocket will be burning the amount of times he'd had to use a card #
• @Fletchian66 Cheers, I'll get it posted up and then send you a link to it when it's all done in reply to Fletchian66 #
• @kevr1990 There's only one way to find out (I'm not responsible if you poison yourself, by the way ) in reply to kevr1990 #
• The most important question of the day; BBC or ITV for World Cup Final coverage? BBC every time for me #worldcup #
• @itvfootball Surely everyone will be watching on the BBC in case you miss the first goal? in reply to itvfootball #
• @NickBFC75 @ahBFC "You can be slow or fast but you must get to the line" in reply to NickBFC75 #
• @NickBFC75 Could go with boy and wifey? Else, do both – GP and World Cup don't clash so a day of sport from about 12 in reply to NickBFC75 #
• Players will be taking the piss out of him now forever more #
• "I'll watch it like he used to watch Doctor Who; behind the sofa" Webb's mum reveals his deepest secrets, bet he's happy about that #
• Interviewing Howard Webb's mother on BBC Breakfast. Bloody hell, get a grip. #worldcup #
• @ahBFC You going to Oldham tomorrow? I'd try and blag pitch clearance and take some photos, they'll probably let you seeing its a friendly in reply to ahBFC #
• @ahBFC If you're doing media and want to write a match report for Exiled Claret let me know, I couldn't get there yesterday in reply to ahBFC #