Work in progress

@moonbus said
Feature creep, the hydra of coding.

A wise programmer once said: a program is complete not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there’s nothing more to remove.

Very true. The delays are largely down to refactoring & rewriting work in this case. Then, rather ironically, trying to get everything working as it was before.

So, the feature creep here is not so much adding "new stuff" - just refactoring/rewriting more than initially intended. Clearing up technical debt which accumulates and needs to be addressed from time to time.

A lot of legacy source code is heading to the bin.

So, to set expectations, I'm hoping no one finds things too radically different when this rolls out - but there are some significant changes backend to help in the future.

I will document all user facing changes long before then anyway.

@Russ

Ta. I realize that cleaning up superfluous code is tedious. Your efforts to keep the service running smoothly are appreciated.

@divegeester said
Would it be possible to have a “preview before send” function like we have with posting in the forums plesse?

As the new messaging system is presented as direct messaging / chat, a preview is not really appropriate.

You do a good job, problem is everyone wants everything yesterday.

-VR

@moonbus said
I realize that cleaning up superfluous code is tedious.

I must be an exception to the rule - I'm a programmer who just loves going through a cruddy code base and kicking it into shape.

It's so satisfying taking a mess of irregular spacing; tabs all the way into the right margin but also lines broken off hard at tab 63; inconsistent use of single and double quotes; escaping of data that you already know cannot be anything else but an integer; conversely ignoring inputs that should be, but might not be, numbers; remarks that say "put value into invoice database" on "INSERT INTO tbl_invoices" but no remark on the previous line which multiplies the total amount by a literal 1.247; HTXML4.000.provisionalIRA tags with closing slashes but also insistence on specifying that yes, this style sheet too is CSS rather than... Markdown? - and leaving behind a clean, sharp, precise body of code that specifies exactly what it needs to do and nothing else; takes no POST data prisoners but trusts its database; doesn't need to be run through a prettifier ever again; is legible and, at first glance, shows its structure; and above all: holds no surprises for anyone familiar with the business domain it deals with.

I really do love it. (And yes, all of the above is drawn from my actual job.)

@russ said
As the new messaging system is presented as direct messaging / chat, a preview is not really appropriate.

Thanks.

@tropicalsweatyboy said
Thanks.

You won’t be here…

@divegeester said
You won’t be here…

The possibility exists for sure.

-VR

Hi Russ

Can you have another think about clan match ratings please? Setting up games tonight and yesterday it seems apparent that a lot of clan members are "crashing" their ratings. If we have a rating specifically for clan matches played it would stop some of the fiddling that seems to be going on; nobody would be able to offset/reduce ratings for clan match purposes by losing other types of games, as they wouldn't register ?

@shallow-blue said
I must be an exception to the rule - I'm a programmer who just loves going through a cruddy code base and kicking it into shape.

It's so satisfying taking a mess of irregular spacing; tabs all the way into the right margin but also lines broken off hard at tab 63; inconsistent use of single and double quotes; escaping of data that you already know cannot be anything ...[text shortened]... main it deals with.

I really do love it. (And yes, all of the above is drawn from my actual job.)

I have to admit, when doing widespread updates that are very similar in nature (such as adopting a new "best practice" that I like) it is easy to get in the zone and have a nice time too making updates, even if repetitive.

Current work is by far the broadest in scope - I look forward to a miserable month or two after release. 🙂

@medullah said
Hi Russ

Can you have another think about clan match ratings please? Setting up games tonight and yesterday it seems apparent that a lot of clan members are "crashing" their ratings. If we have a rating specifically for clan matches played it would stop some of the fiddling that seems to be going on; nobody would be able to offset/reduce ratings for clan match purposes by losing other types of games, as they wouldn't register ?

I do intend to do this, but I'm a little in limbo at the moment where I'm working on two code bases, and changes in the current production code then has to be migrated to the new 'development' version.

I can only ask for a little patience - after having a good rest this summer I'm hoping to get this new build in beta ASAP.

@shallow-blue said
I must be an exception to the rule - I'm a programmer who just loves going through a cruddy code base and kicking it into shape.

It's so satisfying taking a mess of irregular spacing; tabs all the way into the right margin but also lines broken off hard at tab 63; inconsistent use of single and double quotes; escaping of data that you already know cannot be anything ...[text shortened]... main it deals with.

I really do love it. (And yes, all of the above is drawn from my actual job.)

It’s a tedious job, and I’m glad someone likes to do it.

A little update. I'm hoping to improve the web site experience on mobile, as the trends are clearly in that direction.

A big mobile usability improvement - currently the side column on most pages (think the folders list on the "My Games" page) sits below the main content. This is a clearly far from ideal. (Its terrible!)

As of the new build, the My Games page is to be an "infinite scrolling" page (well, if you have played an infinite number of games anyway), there is no bottom of the page as currently, so this is a poor solution now made impossible.

So, when viewing on mobile, the side column can be popped out over the games list/table. This applies to all pages which have a side column too.

TLDR : On mobile, you can now change folder easily!

@Russ

Belated thanks for the response Russ, much appreciated. 👍😉

One extra though on clan matches.

Instead of winner takes all, is it easy/desireable to change things so that you keep the points that you actually win?