Download Episode

Seven months ago, on phpBB Weekly #018, right after the release of RC-1, Douglas discussed the question of which you should install: phpBB2 or phpBB3? But now, seven months have passed, and many things have changed. phpBB3 is now final and stable, PHP 4 is slowly being executed, and we’ve interviewed numerous team members that are forecasting an upcoming end of phpBB2.

In this episode, Douglas re-examines the question of whether a new bulletin board admin should choose phpBB2 or phpBB3, and whether or not it is worth it for existing phpBB2 board to upgrade or not. Plus, we get some commentary from randulo (via the TalkShoe chat room), who recently upgraded his phpBB2 board to phpBB3.

Links Mentioned in this Episode:
phpBB3 Flash Tutorials
phpBB3 Convertors Forum
Topic About phpBB2 vs. phpBB3

The MOD of the Week is Ban users by x warnings for phpBB3 by Paul, and the Style of the Week is proglass for phpBB3 by Statm1 and Synaptic Anarchy.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

Download Episode

This episode turned out to be a packed episode as we added a number of last-minute topics right before the show. We ended up having an unexpected interview with Paul Sohier, MOD Team Member, and we chatted with him a little bit about the MOD/Style Databases (which he’s responsible for designing) and MOD validation.

Furthermore, the PHP teams have announced that they will be formally discontinuing PHP 4 after this year (and security fixes after 2008-08-08). We chat about whether or not this is a good idea and what this means for phpBB, particularly phpBB2, which is not even officially supported under PHP 5. Then, David and I debate whether or not the phpBB teams should advance phpBB2 a bit after the final release of phpBB3, and on whether or not it’s important for the teams to maintain a more “lite” version of phpBB alongside the more complete and more complex phpBB3.

Finally, David talks about the new concept of modules in phpBB3 and what it means for MOD authors and administrators, along with a basic tutorial on how to build modules in phpBB3 and install them. For more info on modules, check out the modules documentation.

The MOD of the Week is Disable Post Editing After X Hours by Throckmorton, and the Style of the Week is RedSilver by jozomannen. Both run on phpBB2. If you want to recommend a MOD or Style (great opportunity here for self-promotion!), bookmark it on del.icio.us with the tag “phpbbwmod” or “phpbbwstyle”.

Just a note that we will be taking another 2-week intermission from live shows. We will be recording an episode #028 off of TalkShoe sometime during the next few weeks, followed by #029 back on TalkShoe on Saturday, September 1st. Also, thanks again to our sponsor, Audible.com.