UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat UBB in PHP ?

I've seen some old BBS projects that are considering PHP as their feature such as DCForum and W3T ( already developed the php version ). Why don't infopop consider providing a PHP version of their fantastic product ? If they really want to keep themselves in the competition they must take that step. I know that mod_perl is now supported in UBB 6 but what about users who do not have mod_perl ? There must be another solution. PHP/MySQL is almost provided on any paid webhosting service ( as well as free onces like : f2s.net ). So don't tell me that they want their product to be installed on a very minimum server requirements.

We don't want fully template driven product like vB , we just want : UBB 6 PHP Version That's it !

Best Regards

[ February 15, 2001: Message edited by: JB007 ]

I haven't a clue, but I am sure there is a very good reason for it. Maybe it is because there are very good message boards out there which are written in PHP. I believe there is one at www.javascriptcity.com.

These things cost very much money to build, and UBB would have to pay some team of PHP developers to do the job.

Not very good input I know, but I am tired.

The key idea behind UBB's design is simple - it can run nearly anywhere.

Going to PHP would severely limit the available audience.

Re: use of mod_perl.. by the time your UBB is large enough to require the speed of a language built into the web daemon, you probably need a dedicated server anyway.

Hello Charles ,
Most of shared webhosting plans include PHP support as well as MySQL. And if you wait for 5-8 months you'll see that PHP is a standard in all webhosting plans. There is no execuse for InfoPop
Also, I don't mean to convert the UBB entirely to PHP , I mean providing the two versions together [ like WWWThreads ].

Best Regards

Yes, it is a valid excuse - the last I checked, PHP was installed on about 75% of the Unix servers out there and less than half the NT... Perl is practically a required element on Unix and is almost always installed on NT when webhosting is involved.

Give PHP another year or so before it's "everywhere" enough...

You are right Charles
PHP is not installed on many NT systems since they use ASP/VBScript instead. If PHP needs 1 year or a bit more to spread over all webhosting companies .. why don't InfoPop start developing their UBB PHP version now? they are going to have a lot of time to do that and cost is not a problem since IP is a becoming a big company now ...

Best Regards

I believe there are "plans" in the works for quite a few things regarding the UBB and modules... stay tuned...

Might be a stupid question, but why? What on earth would be the advantage of having a perl ubb and a php one?

Just a thought

First, so we can put these in our posts when the topics come up :

Mainly, I misread the thread, I was speaking of mysql implementations of the user database, etc...

Besides, I think with the overload in the traffic, it might've broke the dns...
You know anything is possible cal, now will you leave me alone?

Simple, for those who want a higher performance and have the system requirements ... PHP is the solution .
Flat-Files databases can not handle big forums anymore.
So we've got two solutions:
1. PHP/SQL version
2. Perl/SQL version

I suggest that IP start developing a PHP version now and take their time finding the best ways to optimze the performance and remove security holes ... then - say after 6 months - they can release a final stable version of UBB/PHP.

Best Regards

Thought you might have got the wrong idea and i was right. Rewriting it in PHP wont make any difference to performance.

A database backend will not make significant improvements to performance. A bulletin board is a simple thing from a data storage stance. The data isn't complexly relational - in fact it's all extremely straight foward one to many relationships (correct me if i'm wrong). VB isn't detectably faster than ubb until the load gets huge (that's what OTs for anyway) and UBB6's disk access is far faster than iB's.

Am i right in assuming that you don't do this for a living?

Just a thought

That speesh seems somehow familiar

ubb is a nice board, but put any kind of load on ubb and it chokes bigtime. vB on the otherhand keeps its cool.

gameplay.com switched from ubb to vB and i wager that if they switched back to ubb it would be torn to pieces.

The only BBS I've seen using PHP is vBulletin.

and [censored] but I don't like that very much.

Don't start that again.

andyb: But I'll bet they wern't using UBB6, were they? That was the whole reason for the re-write: to make a better product. I'll bet UBB6 will handle gameplay.com when it leaves Beta.

Everyone seems to be obsessed with doing things in PHP these days... Perl is generally more portable, and FAR more powerful (with the right modules). PHP was created primarily for ease-of-use with its' library functions. Like Cal said, just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

[censored] is a site that looks really ugly, probably set up by a bunch of colour blind coders!

But I have seen the product used elsewhere and it can look really like UBB - see this one:
http://www.carpetbagger.com/phpBB/index.php

So for a free board, it has everything UBB has and more as standard. A few odd things like US Date formats - but that can be fixed yourself.

there is another one;
http://www.phorum.org/

Heh hum... phpBB was released just last June or so and is still very beginningish... give it a chance!

Theres a forum out there called ForuMAX that the developer has just starterd work on Version 5, which will be in php/mysql. Its not much to look at, rough around the edges, but has potential.

Apparently i dislike phpBB because it looks like a freeware ubb and ForuMAX because it looks like.....no comment..

phpBB can be (drastically) edited to look much better than it does on the support site... I know, that site looks like **** ...

ForuMAX, the only real reason I liked it (somewhat) is that it gives the administrator the option to add UNLIMITED new profile fields... Plus, when ver5 is done, it should look much better than it does... I'd give it a good six months

And why is that word censored?

Dragged up from my SK bookmarks .

Okay, how about offering MySQL version of UBB for a higher price ? If OpenTopic is being developed by another group of people than why don't Ted start developing a MySQL or a PHP version now ??

Best Regards

[edited]

[ March 03, 2001: Message edited by: CopyCat ]

That is in poor taste CC, to advertise another forum discussion site on this one.