Maintaining hacks

carolc · Posted: 7/3/2007, 5:48 pm Post subject: Maintaining hacks

As I add hacks I notice how many have been updated more than once. Sometimes to fix bugs, sometimes for security. It seems like you almost need some sort of scheduled review of your hacks where you go down the list of what you have installed on your board every 6 months or every year and look them all up to see if there have been updates. I wonder if anyone does this kind of scheduled review or maintenance on their board.

Patrick · Administrator

It wouldn't be a bad idea. When I started adding hacks to phpBB 2 (and phpBB 1, for that matter), I never gave it much thought. While I haven't had that many problems, I wish I had documented everything that I installed. I'm going to do that with phpBB 3.
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Truestar · Moderator

I started documenting it all, however I lost track and never caught up. Its definitely something I'll be doing for future reference in phpBB 3. Smile

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Coyote · Posted: 10/13/2007, 5:32 pm Post subject:

I've redone my forum from the bottom up several times, each time documenting it a little better. This last time I did it I documented everything, and I have a list of all the template edits in case I want to add new styles. I have an RC5 test board, but I've only logged into it once. I was waiting for an official release, I guess.

Elfen · Posted: 1/27/2008, 11:53 pm Post subject:

I document what I can, either on paper, or actual comments into the code of when and why that patch was stitched in. Its good to backtrack one's code and see what was done to it. For example- if a section of code was replaced by a mod, I comment out the original code and add the patch with the explaination. This leave the original code to refer to is things do not work. Its been real helpful on some real headbanger mods!