Major changes to the forum engine

I just finished probably the biggest single modification to the forum code since 2002 or so. The new system looks exactly like the old one, but now all the forum posts, etc are cached in quite complex way that should ultimately drop the load levels on our web and database servers by upto 70 percent.

However, as the feature is brand new, I ask everybody to watch for problems like "I posted a message to a forum X and I can't see it anywhere and its 30mins since I posted it" and report them back to this thread immediately so we can iron out bugs.

 

here's hoping dRD, we were talking about the responses here (hadn't seen your thread then) - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/8/214713. Hopefully the servers will be super quick again soon/or are working there way to be super quick, have only just signed in again so it may all be sorted already

 

We removed the changes about 3 hours ago -- for now. As always, the changes worked like a charm under test environment, but when thrown at our live servers, couple of minor nags in the new system escalated into a massive problem (load levels of 40.0...) and we had to roll back to the old system. We'll investigate the issue tomorrow and check whether we can roll out a modified version of the new forum engine tomorrow.

 

ouch!!! don't you just love it when something works on paper but not in reality!

 

ddp: Yep. Of course, in this case, "in paper" is a test environment with 3 people using it occassionally and "in reality" is a website with 4000-7000 users using the site simultaneously at any given time of the day

 

is it possible to run it as a test server with more people on it along the lines of beta testing as they do with software as in games & windows?

 

ddp: That is most likely something that we will start doing in 2006, as we're finally getting a new in-house developer to our team on next week (so far, its been just me doing pretty much all the code, in addition of everything else that is included to my daily aD routines). This means that new site features will get finished much, much faster than in the past and also it means that hopefully we'll set up somekinda "labs" site that allows selected users to try out "AfterDawn the Beta version" before it goes live to general public. And our "to-do list" for year 2006 in terms of new site areas, new features, etc is enormous..

But this is all just in planning phase now, nothing solid yet, so don't PM me applying to be volunteer =)

 

not me as i'm innocent! you asked me if want to be a mod not me asking you if i can be a mod.

 

@ddp - you saying you don't need 'modifications' then LOL

 

@andmerr: LOL, I doubt whether I even could set my mind to "off aD" mode anymore, I started building this site in Spring 1999, so its almost 7 years that its been part of my life 24/7/365 But you're pretty much right, planning to take a short vacation sometime in late spring when we hopefully get the new team (if you check the news section, we're looking for the new news guy as well to help Dela with his job) settled in. Gonna be weird =)