webDiplomacy (previously phpDiplomacy) is a Web implementation of a popular turn based strategy game in which you battle to control Europe. It is not a game of luck: to win you must be diplomatic and strategic, forming and breaking allegiances and bar…
Archive for June, 2008
webDiplomacy 0.80
Posted by webDiplomacy in June 29th 2008
webDiplomacy (previously phpDiplomacy) is a Web implementation of a popular turn based strategy game in which you battle to control Europe. It is not a game of luck: to win you must be diplomatic and strategic, forming and breaking allegiances and bargains with your friends and enemies. It features an interface intuitive and simple enough that seasoned Diplomacy pros and complete newcomers can play alongside each other.
Changes: A fully DATC compliant adjudicator has replaced
the old adjudicator. Full support for the official
rules has been added. New in-depth documentation
was added throughout the code. All moves are now
displayed on the map. PHP 4 code has been upgraded
to PHP 5. MySQL-specific database optimizations
have been made.
Release Tags: Major feature enhancements
The best ingredients for a nice Pizza
Posted by Joomla! in June 20th 2008
We’re very close to the second Pizza, Bugs and Fun (PBF) event. As you might have noticed, we have extended the PBF event for a second weekend and now have participants from almost every continent. If you are able to join us at one of these venues, we would love to have you. If you can’t come to a venue but you still want to help, you can just sign in from your location.
Joining in is fairly easy but only Bug Squad members have access and can manage the tracker. We might consider opening it up for the PBF event, but somehow we think that will become a major mess 
Like the first PBF event, we set up an easy way to join the PBF participants. When you arrive in the pizza shop, check into the Bazaar by doing these things:- Sign on to the IRC channel (#joomlapbf on freenode) and introduce yourself to the others. Never used IRC? Learn more here and here.
- Join in the discussion and get to know everyone. If you have any questions, feel free to ask! At any point, if you have questions, this is where to ask!
- If you plan to help with testing bugs or creating patches, register on JoomlaCode so that you can add comments to the artifacts.
- You also need to register on the shared Google Document. When you want to get registered, please ask in IRC and the PBF team will contact you to get your e-mail(g-mail) account.
- If you plan to assist with documentation, register on docs.joomla.org so you update to Wiki.
PBF Goal 1: Test pending artifacts
Our first goal for the PBF event is to test all tracker items with "pending" status. This is a collection of artifacts where a patch already is provided, but it has not been fully tested yet. We would love to see participants start by testing these artifacts. We like to have at least two successful tests for simple issues, more for complex ones. In order to help with area 1 (testing patches), you must do the following:
- Go to the Google Document (spreadsheet) and pick an issue with "pending" status. Sign up to begin testing by entering your (nick)name next to the issue you plan to test.
- Go to the Joomla! bug tracker to learn more about the issue and find the patch.
- Apply the patch to your testing site. (Need to know more about setting up your testing site?)
- Based on the testing instructions or problem description, see if the patch has the intended result.
- Make sure nothing else appears to break.
- Post a comment on the Joomla! bug tracker about your results.
- If you think the patch is ready to go into the codebase, let one of the couriers know in the IRC channel.
PBF Goal 2: Try to confirm all open artifacts
A lot of artifacts have been reported in the Joomla! bug tracker and the default status of these items is "open." Not every artifact is a real issue and, to confirm this, we need everyone to work on validating open artifacts. As soon as an artifact is confirmed, it will get the status "confirmed" (or another status that will close the artifact in case it cannot be confirmed). Participants who want to work on this goal should do the following:
- Go to the Google Document (spreadsheet) and pick an issue with "open" status. Sign up to begin testing by entering your (nick)name next to this issue.
- Go to the Joomla! bug tracker to learn more about the issue and see if you can reproduce the problem.
- If you are able to confirm the problem, add a comment on the artifact and mark the item "confirmed" in the shared Google document. Also note that it cannot be confirmed, if that is the result, along with your PHP version, browser or other useful information.
- Make a small note in the IRC channel that you have confirmed (or cannot confirm) the artifact.
PBF Goal 3: Provide patches
Once issues have been confirmed, it’s time to create patches. This is the area where developers are at their best When you plan to work on a patch, please perform the following steps:
- Go to the Google Document (spreadsheet) and pick an issue with "confirmed" status. To make sure people know you are working on the artifact, entering your (nick)name on the artifact line.
- Work on solving the issue and when you’re done, create the patchfile.
- Add a comment to the tracker item. Provide a detailed explanation of how to test the patch.
- Change the status in the Google Document to "pending." and ask if someone with access to the tracker to do the same with the individual status of the artifact.
- Notify the IRC channel that you have a patch ready and ask if someone with appropriate access to attach your patch to the artifact and set the status to "pending."
PBF Goal 4: Write documentation
- Register on docs.joomla.org so you update to Wiki.
- Take a look at http://docs.joomla.org/Cookie_jar and choose a topic you would like to write about.
- Enter {{inuse}} at the top of the page you are working on and save it so others know that someone is working on it.
- Write your document.
- When you have finished working on a page, remember to remove the {{inuse}} from it.
- Let those idling on the IRC channel know that another task is complete. It’s great to celebrate our victories.
PBF Goal 5: Firefox 3 testing
- Please pay close attention to template, administration and fron-end behaviour when you use firefox 3.
- If you find an issue, please report an issue on the Joomla! bug tracker.
The team of Pizza Couriers hopes to meet you all during the event!
Regards Chris Davenport, Kevin Devine, Anthony Ferrara, Wilco Jansen, Jennifer Marriott, Ron Severdia, Amy Stephen, and Elin Waring.
What it takes to bake a pizza
Posted by Joomla! in June 15th 2008
Some will think "Why should I participate in the Pizza, Bugs and Fun event? Why not just let others fix bugs and write documentation for Joomla!?" After all, you likely have too many responsibilities in life, as it is. Perhaps you don’t see yourself as someone who has the kind of talent needed to help the Joomla! project. Maybe you really would like to help, but you have no idea how to get started. If you are thinking this way, you are not alone. In fact, those are typical reasons people do not participate.
Have you considered how contributing to the Joomla! project could be good for your business? Have you given any thought to the benefit that comes from networking with others who are talented Joomla! developers, site builders, and designers? The benefits from participation are very valuable, most especially for those using Joomla! commercially.
Over the next two weekends, on June 20th and 21st, and June 27th and 28th, people from all over the world will get together in homes, coffee shops, and offices. Some groups will be as small as two or three people. Others will work independently, joining this group of contributors online. Together, these people will fix bugs and work on other tasks important to the Joomla! project. Those who help finalize Joomla! 1.5.4 will directly influence that release. You can be certain that those who participate will have in mind fixes they need available for their customer base.
In an open source community, participants share that which the community makes available. All together, we have more than we could ever produce alone. Those of you who use Joomla! in a commercial setting are encouraged to begin working more closely with the community. We welcome you to contribute in an area of interest that is also smart for your business. Networking with others who provide Joomla! services and help with the community will certainly bring benefit and opportunity. Plus, it feels good knowing you helped improve the Joomla! project and volunteering can be a lot of fun!
Whether you have four days or four hours to help with the Pizza, Bugs and Fun event, the Joomla! project really does need and welcome your involvement. Please, sign up now.
In the initial announcement of the second PBF event we set the date for 21 and 22 of June. On request the event will be extended with an additional weekend so the 27th and 28th are alos part of the planning. If you want to help out during the weeks, or even organize a PBF on your own…feel free to do so, all the help is welcome. Especially companies are encouraged to donate venues to get people together, please register your venue on the wiki or contact me if you have any questions.
Working together on multiple locations…how does that work?
The decentralized approach will be challenging for people not directly involved in the development team or the bug squad. But it works, every day we work together this way in the bug squad. But for people new to this way of collaborating and working together it will for sure be difficult to start, we are pretty aware if that. We plan to set up something like we used during the first PBF event. A shared document with the artifacts categorized. When you want to work on an issue, you "take" the artifact, and work on it. More details on how we set this up will be shared this week in more detail. Until then it is helpful to read through the tracker and asses which issues are reported so you know what artifacts you would like to work on.
For people new to the Joomla! project or people who have no experience in collaborating this way everything can be incredible overwhelming (is sometimes still is with me). Remember that the Joomla! community is known for our ability to help people, a nicer place to start working together in the Free Open Source Software environment is very hard to find. Be confident, and just try to get in, and I guarantee you that it will be a fun experience for sure!
Further Reading
There is a lot of information available on the wiki and the development blog. The information available can be very overwhelming, but if you want to start quickly as you join into the PBF event we advise you to read it. Reading the information will take you between 30-60 minutes.
The use of the tracker is described in the documentation wiki, but as mentioned also in several blogs from the bug squad members. Let’s link to some information here:
- When people find an issue they can report it on our tracker, all details of this can be found in the reporting issues page on the wiki.
- Additional information on this can be found on the development blog, check out the blog describing the artifact statuses, the blog describing the artifact priorities and the blog describing some basic things about patches.
- Reported issues are normally handled by members of the bug squad, but during PBF not only bug squad members will work on resolving issues, everyone is invited! To read how we normally handle reported issues we suggest you read the resolving issues page on the wiki.
- To help out testing you need to have at least an editor and a subversion client. The editor is obvious for those creating patches, and a subversion client is used to apply or create patched. Maybe you use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) like Eclipse as the editing tool and have integral access to subversion. I personally consider setting up Subversion is an easy task, but I know non-developers can get totally lost. For those using Eclipse we advise you to take a look at the wiki page where the use of Subversion is explained (including an Eclipse video tutorial).
When working on the PBF event it is important to understand the concept of implementing or creating a patch-file since patches are the starting point of registering, analysing, testing and solving reported issues.
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