Issue #32: November 10, 2003

By Harald Ponce de Leon

November 10, 2003

Forum Migration
Development Progress
Contributions Forum Channel
Wiki Documentation

Discussions regarding this weekly report can be found here:

https://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=65383

Forum Migration

After the successful migration procedure of moving from a phpBB powered forum solution to an InvisionBoard powered forum solution, performance issues arose when a high number of search queries were being performed simultaneously.

When this happened, MySQL would choke on the number of incoming SQL queries and lock the general queries while struggling to perform the intensive search queries. This buildup of locked queries ultimately reached the maximum number of queries/connections allowed and brought the whole database server down, which unfortunately also affected the whole support site in general.

After failed attempts at fine-tuning InvisionBoard, upgrading MySQL to 4.x, and trying InnoDB based database tables for better locking capabilities, our sponsor Pair Networks graciously upgraded the server from a QS1 server to a QS3 server with no extra costs involved, which solved most of the performance issues.

We are still in the process of fine-tuning the server in general, as at times a buildup of locked queries still occurs. We'd like to thank you for your patience during this time, and for all the reports and notifications sent in when the server was down.

The move from phpBB to InvisionBoard was made to provide moderators with more power that aids them in their moderator duties, and to provide better search results for community members.

Development Progress

The Workboard entries for Milestone 3 and Milestone 4 have been reshuffled to change the focus on the remaining milestone releases.

The focus of the Milestone 3 release is to freeze the core API with the last amount of big changes to be made on implementing classes, being register_globals compatible, and integrating a template structure for easier frontend design work to be done.

These changes are needed to reach the goal of being "secure, stable, and efficient" which unfortunately brings in the side effect of contributions being incompatible due to the API changes required.

Reshuffling the Workboard entries has allowed us to focus the incompatibility issue on just one milestone release instead of two, with the original register_globals compatibility being assigned to Milestone 4 now being assigned to Milestone 3.

Documentation on the API changes will be provided on the Wiki site during this week when the changes are committed to the CVS repository.

The focus of the Milestone 4 release is to merge the Catalog and Administration Tool files, integrate contributions the community has provided, and to publish the much needed user documentation.

The Milestone 4 release will be the last development release before a finalized osCommerce 2.2 package is made available.

Due to the long development time of finalizing 2.2, and due to the increased focus on the "secure, stable, and efficient" goal, PHP 3 compatibility will be dropped on the Milestone 3 release to focus on the advantages PHP > 4.1 brings while remaining compatible to PHP 4.0.x.

As PHP 5.0 is nearing, future releases will focus on taking advantage of PHP 5 while remaining compatible to PHP 4.

Contributions Forum Channel

This week the Contributions forum channel will be split to its own category with a channel for announcements and a channel for general support.

This move should ease the information overflow effect currently occurring in the single forum channel.

Wiki Documentation

The structure of the Wiki documentation has been updated - feedback is welcome on the Wiki forum channel.

The Wiki documentation can be reached at:

https://www.oscommerce.com/wiki

The Wiki forum channel can be reached at:

https://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showforum=15