Today we released a new version of the Distributed Proofreaders code that runs pgdp.net! The announcement includes a list of what’s changed in the 9 years since the last release as well as a list of contributors, some statistics, and next steps. I’ve been working on getting a new release cut since mid-September so I’m pretty excited about it!
The prior release was in September 2006 and since that time there have been continuous, albeit irregular, updates to pgdp.net, but no package available for folks to download for new installations or to update their existing ones. Instead, enterprising individuals had to pull code from the ‘production’ tag in CVS (yes, seriously).
In the process of getting the code ready for release I noticed that there had been changes to the database on pgdp.net that hadn’t been reflected in the initial DB schema or the upgrade scripts in the code. So even if someone had downloaded the code from CVS they would have struggled to get it working.
As part of cutting the release I walked through the documentation that we provide, including the installation, upgrade, and configuration steps, and realized how much implied knowledge was in there. Much of the release process was me updating the documentation after learning what you were suppose to do.1 I ended up creating a full DP installation on a virtual machine to ensure the installation steps produced a working system. I’m not saying they’re now perfect, but they are certainly better than before.
Cutting a release is important for multiple reasons, including the ability for others to use code that is known to work. But the most important to me as a developer is the ability to reset dependency versions going forward. The current code, including that released today, continues to work on severely antiquated versions of PHP (4.x up through 5.3) and MySQL (4.x up to 5.1). This was a pseudo design decision in order to allow sites running on shared hosting with no control over their middleware to continue to function. Given how the hosting landscape has changed drastically over the past 9 years, and how really old those versions are, we decided it’s time to change that.
Going forward we’re resetting the requirements to be PHP 5.3 (but not later, due to our frustrating dependency on magic quotes) and MySQL 5.1 and later. This will allow us to use modern programming features like classes and exceptions that we couldn’t before.
Now that we have a release behind us, I’m excited to get more developers involved and start making some much-needed sweeping changes. Things like removing our dependency on magic quotes and creating a RESTful API to allow programmatic access to DP data. I’m hoping being on git and the availability of a development VM (more on that in a future blog post) will accelerate development.
If you’re looking for somewhere to volunteer as a developer for a literary2 great cause, come join us!
1 A serious hat-tip to all of my tech writer friends who do this on a daily basis!
Digital Ramblings 