Question2Answer roadmap

Question

Is there a place where you can know the release dates (roughly speaking) of the next q2a versions ?

And possibly where you can see which new features will be added and which bugs will be fixed ? 

Here ?

I've seen some old posts about the 1.5 roadmap, but if I'm not wrong, at the moment, nothing is known about the next version...

Am I wrong ?

About the "place", if there is not one, why not use github basic issue tracking and milestones management ? 

Or more advanced tools such as jira ? (that if I'm not wrong is free for open source projects...) 

It would not be bad to have an official place where to track all feature requests, issues, and milestones...

Even if I agree with the fact that it's an additional overhead.....

 

Comments

100% agree with you

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It would be nice!

Answer 1

Well, this issue brings up other issues :o)

From my 2 years experience with q2a and using this forum here over and over again, being in PM-contact with the main developer regularly I conclude, by Nov 2013:

• the q2a core is only developed by Gideon Greenspan, see user gidgreen
• q2a is not his main project so he is spending his "free time" to bring q2a further
• he tries to help by answering recent questions from time to time
• but as he is alone he cannot manage all requests (which brings disappointment to some dev/users)
• that is why I would suggest to build a developers team soon
• however, documentation is not easy for beginners, I still don't know how the core really works
• but nevertheless, I learnt to handle the q2a engine (see my plugins)
• Scott and NoahY are really good plugin developers and could help with the core as well (however, NoahY seems to not be active for some months)
• jatin.soni arrived last year as well, and is also passionate about q2a (see q2amarket.com), as well as sama55 who also develops plugins
• and there a lot of other developers coming to the forum (and leaving again)

This is just a 100 % "writing down" from experience and ideas.

The requested roadmap would be great, of course, but I think gidgreen will not be able to do it. Especially if he does it he could be blamed by others, why he did not solve bugs x and y in time etc. Kind of stress.

I am eager to use the next 1.6.3 for another project, finding bugs, and still improving things. But I have no idea when he will release it.

So, for now and for the recent future, I think this will not change. On the other hand, I like to be surprised =) but at least I would see a bug list on github. The bug tag here in this forum that gidgreen asks developers to use is just not powerful enough (solved bugs are not marked and appear still open).

My two cents, hope they help.
Kai

 

PS: 3 weeks ago I sent gidgreen all my core hacks, about 30 to 40. It might be (at least I hope) that he is implementing most of them into q2a. The hacks make things easier, esp. usability of the forum. Maybe this is the reason why the next release takes longer.

Comments

I am quite late but I feel I have to comment as well on this ongoing issue.

Nothing against any programmer here, but there is no one experienced enough to handle a project like this. I think gideons first suggestion: "The best answer I can suggest is to simply fork the project, and create a community-developed spinoff under a different name." is the rigth and only one.

I am sure scott will make a great work, but developing q2a into a more actual community like script by having new media fields, blog and new content types like articles instead of questions or modern communication tools to be able to set up modern sites far beyond from a classic Q and A site is not inside his (actual) interest or possibilities but very important for many users to stay with q2a.

Tumblr for example is years old and since years q2a is close to it. Or any blog script is so close but we still can´t get there. Same for any media related discussion platform.

Same for a community script where not questions but smalltalk are the main interest, a small facebook, a groups realted community script or something in this direction is close but not possible. See ask.fm for example.

I see that there may be opinions that I am going to far, but I think this is absolutely not the case, because q2a is such a good work that it should grow into this direction and because the market is hungry for matching scripts.

I believe that q2a could be one of the very few leading scripts in the market.

This is the reason why I think that Gideon should take his baby to the 2.0 level before he steps a side a bit and different groups of developers follow the different directions.

There is nobody here who can do that if not he himself.

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Hi monk333, thanks for your response. Just to give you my opinion...

First, from what I've seen Scott is more than qualified enough to take Q2A in any direction that he and the community wants.

Having said that Q2A is primarily known as a Q&A script and not a general framework for community-generated content. So it's hard for me to see the sense in taking it in that direction. If that's the goal, I think it should be a hard fork.

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I completely agree with Gideon.

I have been working with Gideon since long time and now with Scott and found both have tremendous experience and skill which I never found in anyone here on Q2A community. They know very much goal oriented and know very well what is better for Q2A.

I also found Scott is very much active in Q2A development now and that you can see on Github.

Many people here asked about adding blog system and so on.. I really glad to know that Gideon has the same thought as mine. I always say NO to blog within Q2A since it is purely Q&A script. I would prefer to have more advanced features for Q&A rather than re-inventing the wheel by adding blog system.

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This is the reason why I think that Gideon should take his baby to the 2.0 level before he steps a side a bit and different groups of developers follow the different directions.

>> I am sure Gideon is still with Q2A and will always be :) but he had taken this decision just because of time constraint, and he wants Q2A to keep growing.

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Ok, as I see on Gideons comment, he does not see the sense in taking q2a into a "general framework for community generated content". I did not realize that this is the situation. I just remember the philosophy to follow in the scripts development the user input and I am sure that there have been enough posts which asked for more community / blog / media features.

And it is not about reinventing the wheel. There is no real light weight and save general community content script on the market. The advantage of q2a is that it is stable and incredebly fast, a framework, which could compete with everything else on the market easily. As I am no programmer I know very most scripts and I am sure that it would be great if q2a could grow into that direction.

As well I am sure that Scott is fully competent to maintain q2a as question and answer script. I have seen him from the beginning on and have seen how his competence grew over the years into an real expert level.

But, and this is what I truly without offending anybody think, Scott like Soni in his last comment, are only interested in a question and answer framework.

In summary I just can repeat what I wrote before: It would be great if Gideon could take q2a to a community content 2.0 level, or saying it in his words "If that´s the goal, I think it should be a hard fork". Because otherwise I believe q2a wont get there, and "just" beeing an excellent and well maintained question and answer script. It is that "hard fork" which only Gideon could do, I am sure.

I read about what the community members say, but I as well see that many "young" members did not follow because they missed modern features.

However, I am happy to have found q2a years ago and I will stay.

(Besides, I would pay much money for having a q2a community 2.0.)