gnosygnu / xowa

xowa offline wiki application
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Announcement: XOWA development changes #143

Open gnosygnu opened 7 years ago

gnosygnu commented 7 years ago

I posted a blog entry, but I'm also posting an issue here for greater visibility. See http://xowa.org/home/wiki/Blog/2017-04.html

In short, I'm starting a new job tomorrow and XOWA development will slow down in the coming months. XOWA will still continue to grow though, just at a slower pace.

The rest of the blog entry is posted below the break


Personal: A new job and other changes (2017-04-02 12:00 Sun)

XOWA development will be undergoing some changes in the coming months. As of tomorrow, I'll be starting a new job, and consequently, I won't be able to give as much time to XOWA as before. In fact, few people know this, but I spent the past year working full-time on XOWA. So, strictly by numbers, XOWA is going to go from a 60-80 hour per week schedule to something much less.

With that said, XOWA development will not halt. As demonstrated by the full-year work effort, I care deeply about this project, and I do not plan to stop developing XOWA any time in the future. However, it does mean that there will be a few changes.

First, the pace of development will slow down. The past year has seen a lot of development: from XOWA Android to Download Central to personal wikis to full-text search. [1] Given the new schedule, it won't be at all possible to match that output. I still have a bunch of major changes planned, but I expect that only two or three major changes will occur before the end of the year.

Second, I'll be producing Download Central wikis at a slower rate. I do want to do a full update of all wikis, especially with the recent addition of full-text search. However, if I run into issues, I may postpone a wiki for a few weeks to a month until I work them out. I'll try to provide some sort of schedule for changes, but things may be in flux for a while. As always, if you have any requests, please make them, and I'll definitely prioritize them.

Third, I'm going to turn my attention to making XOWA easier for other developers and power users. This means more documentation in building XOWA as well as the Download Central databases. I'd love to have some support from others, and really don't want to have XOWA development depend entirely on me.

I'm sure there will probably be other noticeable changes as well. Again, I want to assure you that XOWA is not going to go away anytime soon. If anything, it will continue to grow -- especially with more support from others.

[1] There's also a lot more such as HTML databases, PageRank, Auto-complete URL bar, Page Sync, Options, ICU Categories, Page Banner, multi-threaded parsers, nightmode, hdpi support, and dozens of parser issues.

Ope30 commented 7 years ago

Heya.

Take all your time needed for your new job. Nobody expects you to constantly work on your program without giving much more time on other things. You already completed so much work on XOWA the last few months, everybody should be satisfied, including me. If you compare the current version to others, 5 or 8 months ago, you can see the big difference. Also, I would like to help you with development, but I honestly have ZERO idea regarding coding or sort. All I can give you is testing things out and reporting bugs. Which I will continue from doing so. It's fun and I know that I'm getting you/us into the right direction. By the way, are you having issues with Czech Haitian? If so, that can wait. If not, and you're not done yet, that can wait as well. Im not in a hurry.

I didn't talk about the recent update of XOWA and it content. Well, what should I say, definitely an improvement!

gnosygnu commented 7 years ago

You already completed so much work on XOWA...

Hey! Thanks for all the kind words! I also feel that XOWA advanced a lot over the past year due to new features and bug-fixes. Not to mention that a fair number of those bugs were discovered due to your testing. (ICU Categories for instance). So my gratitude to you for your help as well. You even got a mention here: http://xowa.org/home/wiki/Help/About

By the way, are you having issues with Czech Haitian?

I've been working on some parser issues related to #142 as well as trying to integrate full-text search into them. I'm aiming to get them uploaded this weekend, but things could change

I didn't talk about the recent update of XOWA and it content. Well, what should I say, definitely an improvement!

Yup. I added one feature that I thought you would be interested in: https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa/issues/120#issuecomment-290285335. Hope it's working out for you!

Ope30 commented 7 years ago

Hey! Thanks for all the kind words! I also feel that XOWA advanced a lot over the past year due to new features and bug-fixes. Not to mention that a fair number of those bugs were discovered due to your testing. (ICU Categories for instance). So my gratitude to you for your help as well. You even got a mention here: http://xowa.org/home/wiki/Help/About

Wow. Thanks for mentioning me! :D

I've been working on some parser issues related to #142 as well as trying to integrate full-text search into them. I'm aiming to get them uploaded this weekend, but things could change

Sure, sure!

Yup. I added one feature that I thought you would be interested in: #120 (comment). Hope it's working out for you!

Oh yeah! In addition, I did not read this comment below beause I did not get any notifications I believe.

This bug occurs because of a bad 2017-02 English Wikipedia release. Approximately 172,000 pages (out of 5 million) had bad category databases ids which in turn causes the page to fail.

I think that is no reason to redownload 2017-03, or?! Since you fixed the issue already. :-I

gnosygnu commented 7 years ago

Wow. Thanks for mentioning me! :D

No worries. You easily deserved it -- with all the bugs you discovered. It was the least I could do (besides fix the bugs). :)

Oh yeah! In addition, I did not read this comment below beause I did not get any notifications I believe.

Cool. Hopefully it does what you want it to.

I think that is no reason to redownload 2017-03, or?! Since you fixed the issue already. :-I

Nope. The 2017-02 databases had bad category data. 2017-03 has good category data, so you could give that a try. Or wait about 2 to 3 weeks for 2017-04.

Ope30 commented 7 years ago

No worries. You easily deserved it -- with all the bugs you discovered. It was the least I could do (besides fix the bugs). :)

πŸ‘ πŸ‘ πŸ‘ πŸ‘

Nope. The 2017-02 databases had bad category data. 2017-03 has good category data, so you could give that a try. Or wait about 2 to 3 weeks for 2017-04.

Alright. I'll wait a few weeks for 2017-04. Thanks for making that clear!

Krinkle commented 7 years ago

@gnosygnu Can you explain the relation between https://github.com/gnosygnu/xowa and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/GXOW/ (Gerrit, GitHub).

Is the Wikimedia repository for stable releases only? Or is it no longer used? Should it be closed, removed, or marked with a helpful message that interested people should look here instead?

gnosygnu commented 7 years ago

Is the Wikimedia repository for stable releases only? Or is it no longer used? Should it be closed, removed, or marked with a helpful message that interested people should look here instead?

I originally used to upload to the wikimedia repository at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/project:xowa. I stopped doing it a year or so ago as it complicated my release process and I didn't know if anyone used this repo. I've since been uploading directly to Github

I'm open to doing dual uploads to the Wikimedia repository, but I don't know if the extra time reaps any benefits. If I'm missing some detail, please let me know, and I'll certainly reconsider. Otherwise, I'll hunt down the process for officially closing it / marking it with a message to look here instead.

Thanks!

Krinkle commented 7 years ago

@gnosygnu Thanks for the quick reply. I see no strong reason to dual-upload the releases in this case.

However, in general it is beneficial for community projects to live in Wikimedia repositories (whether on Gerrit or on GitHub). For example, the issue #150 was only created by me because it showed up in the wider org:wikimedia search at https://github.com/search?q=org:wikimedia+toctitle&ref=opensearch&type=Code.

If it is only for releases as a secondary repo, then I don't see any particular use in maintaining two repositories. I'd recommend filing a Phabricator task so that someone can archive the Gerrit repo and delete the GitHub mirror.

However, if you'd be interested in having the repository live under the @wikimedia space on GitHub, then I can help you. If so, you can transfer this repo to me (@Krinkle), then I'll move it from there to @wikimedia. I'll provide you with full admin rights of course, and GitHub will automatically redirect any links currently pointing to gnosygnu/xowa.

gnosygnu commented 7 years ago

@Krinkle Thanks to you also for the quick reply. :) I do like the idea of having the repo live in a Wikimedia repository, but I need to think more on the matter. I'll post again here when I come to a decision.

In the meantime, thanks again for reporting the issue at #150. I do appreciate it.

gnosygnu commented 7 years ago

@Krinkle: After some consideration, I decided to keep things as per the status quo. I created a task to archive the project at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/GXOW/. See: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T168204

Thanks again for the suggestion as well as the report for the other issue. Let me know if there is anything else.