Building a forum : Size of signature | Tech Off

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

I'm building a forum, how long is usually a signature field? 50 chars any good?

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

0 is best, I think. Tongue Out

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to Sven Groot

#Nov 22nd, 2008 @ 11:03 PM

hehhe.. I gott'a agree with you. I don't like them myself but most people seem to like having signatures. I will however have an option to make signatures invisible in case a user doesn't wish to see them.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Ever heard of nvarchar?

And why are you reinventing the wheel, there are a load of very well-developed and easily extensible forum softwares available under FOSS licenses.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to W3bbo

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:04 AM

Yes, you mean nvarchar(max)? So you recommend using it for ALL fields? Doesn't sound right to me.

Regarding "reinventing the wheel", frankly it is dumbest thing I ever heard. Specially coming from a so called developer. I AM A DEVELOPER. I ENJOY LEARNING AND DEVELOPING STUFF. WHY THE F*** DO SO CALLED DEVELOPERS HERE KEEP TELLING PEOPLE TO NOT DEVELOPE AND INSTEAD USE OTHER PEOPLES WORK?

Have you gone totally insane and lost it?

Why would I want to use some CRAP someone else coded? I like building my own stuff, to super customize them for my need. I like being king of my own castle.

My "forum" is not another phpBB look-alike forum. People like to develop stuff, Get over it damn it!

Why are you a developer? You can use WMP, you can use phpBB stuff, hell yeah, lets all quit developing and be corporate slaves and use one OS, one forum engine, one media player, one YOUTUBE for videos, one....

w t f ?

I get very very veeeeeeeery angry when I hear stuff like this, specially coming out of so called developers.

If you want to be slave, go ahead! But don't tell me to use someone elses JUNK! !#¤£$@£$@!@£$@!#¤

ps. I don't have any respect for you as a developer. No matter how well you know math!

ps2. you are a complete ignorant person. i'm so f***ing pissed off right now not only you puke junk, you also derail my thread which was about FIELD SIZE into something totally else.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to W3bbo

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:04 AM

Did FaceBook guys do it?
Did Google do it?
Did YouTube do it?
Did Channel9 do it?
Did CNN do it?
Did Beta News do it?
Did Bink do it?
Did Steam do it?
Did Delphi3000 do it?
Did Code Project do it?
Did Experts Exchange do it?

bhahhahahaa...

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to W3bbo

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:04 AM

So I take a phpBB, add a theme to it, run it off a p3 server.... and... PROFIT?

Smiley

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to W3bbo

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:04 AM

W3bbo, turrican has a valid point here. Sometimes people need to "reinvent the wheel" if the current wheel needs improvement. And sometimes it's fun to create something yourself, even if an equivalent already exists. Sometimes it's also easier to create something yourself (and have full control) than it is to use an existing solution and (try to) integrate it with your system.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to turrican

#Nov 22nd, 2008 @ 11:29 PM

I think if you must do signatures, 50 characters would be a bit too short. 200 or something would be better. I'd also limit it to something like 4 lines vertical space max (hard to enforce if you allow images though).

If this is actually, as W3bbo seems to have thought, a question about the field size in the database and not one of policy, then I would recommend using nvarchar(max) in this case and leaving the actual length restriction up to the forum administrator.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:46 AM

No, he has NO valid point AT ALL here.

None of you know what I'm building!

I REFUSE TO USE SOME READYMADE JUNK OPEN SOURCE CRAP!

I'm creating something cool... not another "blogg"

again...

Did FaceBook guys do it?
Did Google do it?
Did YouTube do it?
Did Channel9 do it?
Did CNN do it?
Did Beta News do it?
Did Bink do it?
Did Steam do it?
Did Delphi3000 do it?
Did Code Project do it?
Did Experts Exchange do it?

I have dreams. Perhaps you don't, but I do.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to turrican

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:55 AM

You must have misunderstood my post: I told W3bbo that you have a valid point.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to Sven Groot

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:55 AM

Hm... 200 sounds about ok. Problem is since a signature can't be "unlimited" since it would lose its function, I wasn't sure what is recommended usually.

Thing with nvarchar(max) is that I'm not sure if it is wise to use it for smaller fields. ( started a new thread for this since it's pure SQL )

Cupiditas
Chris Hawkins

In reply to turrican

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:55 AM

If this was, say, a client project, and you had two days to complete it in because your manager is an arsehole, then using a ready made solution would be a good idea. It's all about context.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:58 AM

In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome: if it's a core business function -- do it yourself, no matter what.

If you just need a forum for your website, it's better to use existing forum software, if building forum software is not your core business. If turrican wants to build forum software, not because he needs a forum for his website, but because he thinks he can write better forum software than what currently exists, then he SHOULD do it.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to turrican

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 2:00 AM

I'd also suggest using NVARCHAR(MAX). Just move the maximum length to the business layer, or to the configuration file.

NVARCHAR(MAX) actually works like NVARCHAR(n) if the data is small enough (data stored inline in the record) and like TEXT if the data is too large to fit in the record.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 2:04 AM

+1

Yepp. This website is a forum but not just a forum. It's a product. Its core function is forum. Its goal is to be unique. Its goal is to have many visitors. Basically I see all websites as forums these days since people like to interact.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 2:08 AM

oh I see, so it is automatic. Sounds cool. Thanks.

jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException()

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:58 AM

NVM. Flamebait.

jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException()

In reply to turrican

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 2:12 AM

++ on the Max.

Also, bear in mind that you may want to expand its capability in future to allow various types of formatting all of which take up charspace in the db.

VB Man
Year of the Linux MCE.

In reply to turrican

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 1:30 AM

How the hell do you know? Were you watching over everyone's shoulder when they were writing the software?

There have been allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole the code.

If I recall, Google JUST finished up an OPEN SOURCE mobile operating system. They obviously like the ideas of sharing knowledge and not 're-inventing the wheel'.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to VB Man

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 4:22 PM

I was going to mention that, but decided not to for fear of being provocative.

Nonethless, of turrican's list:

Did FaceBook guys do it? Maybe. There are allegations that Zuckerberg plagarised it from his roommate
Did Google do it? No. But you cannot compare Google to a community website based on NIH. Google is it's search, whereas a community site is the community, it doesn't matter what software they run on
Did YouTube do it? Yes. Flash video has been around since 2002
Did Channel9 do it? Yes (oh the irony!). C9v1 was built on ASP.NET Forums, C9v2 used FlexWiki and and C9v3 involved Community Server
Did CNN do it? Maybe. Often news websites share the same CMS. CNN probably started off with a bought-in one, but I have no doubt their current one is developed in-house
Did Beta News do it? Yep. Their original forum software was off-the-shelf
Did Bink do it? Probably. Like most community sites they probably started off with some OTS software then developed their own as their needs progressed. Similar to DeviantArt, they started off with some Nuke installation in 2000 before writing their own in 2002/2003
Did Steam do it? Yes. Their site forum is vBulletin
Did Delphi3000 do it? Dunno. Never heard of them
Did Code Project do it? No....and look at the poor quality of the site and lack of recent quality submissions. The only reason they're still going is their intertia. They're on the way out for sure.
Did Experts Exchange do it? No. But Experts-Exchange is evil.