Fusebox 5 was scheduled to have its general release in mid-July so where is it?
Well, first off we uncovered an interesting edge case bug that could cause corrupted parsed/ files (even in production mode) if a server was hit with a lot of traffic as it was starting up. That was a subtle thread safety issue and I think I have that fixed. My blog has been running "GR0" - General Release candidate zero - for a couple of weeks now without seeing the problem reoccur (prior to that, several folks had alerted me to corrupted parsed/ files on my blog after server restarts).
7/29: Definitely seems to be fixed so the release has begun.
Second, there turns out to be more involved with an official release than I'd originally planned for. Quite a bit of the content on the Fusebox web site needs some degree of tweaking and we have to figure out how to avoid confusing Fusebox users who opt to stay on Fusebox 4: if we update the documentation, where do they find their answers - if we don't update the documentation, what happens for people who do upgrade to Fusebox 5? I did a review of the site and opened about two dozen tickets covering changes to the web site - some of them, quite broad changes.
7/29: the core files and skeleton app are on the site now - the changes to the site will happen over the next couple of weeks.
Third, there are some philosophical issues to address about where Fusebox is and where it is going. There have been a number of different "committees" in charge of Fusebox over the years with varying degrees of success. In fact, Fusebox politics seems to be responsible for driving a number of people away from the community and even the framework itself.
7/29: we're still working through these...
Fusebox 5 has been developed in a much more public, much more community-focused way than any previous release. It's an experiment that has been very successful, in my opinion, helping to create a release that addresses genuine needs that the Fusebox developer community have.
The Fusebox web site went through a major overhaul (last year or perhaps in 2004) but still has some major holes in the content. I think we need more community involvement in contributing content but in order for that to happen, we need a more open approach to developing that content.
Using SVN and Trac, hosted by Simeon Bateman, has allowed Fusebox 5's development process to be much more transparent. Team Fusebox is having discussions about how to build on this transparency and engage the community more, going forward, but ultimately - for now, at least - the final decisions are made by The Fusebox Corporation (Hal Helms and John Quarto-vonTivadar).
I'm posting this to let folks know where things stand because whilst discussions were moving forward quite well a few weeks ago, things have gone rather quiet again.
Thanks!
Toby
I just downloaded FB5. Where could I find on how to move FB4.1 applications to FB5. I just downloaded FB5 directed one application to the new core files and I am getting all sorts of error messages on application.fusebox ?
Or use the Fusebox forums on fusebox.org - there's a Fusebox 5 forum.
