28 Oct | Update 13

Hi everyone,

Just a little sign of life!  As mentioned on the News page's message I left you at the beginning of this month, we've had to halt our work on the code for a while longer, 'cause we have things in our personal life that needs our time at the moment.

Everything is going well for us, it's just things that need a bit of time (post-immigration stuff, sorting our life as a legal Canadian couple now, a new job for me).  But being able to reinclude the programming work into our schedule is beginning to look possible.  Not sure when yet, but it's definitely on the short horizon in sight!   

We as always really look forward to getting back to it!  Just wanted you to know that PoetBay is very much on our minds.  We wish we could work on it on a full-time basis, but that is unfortunately just not possible.  Got bills to pay, y'know ;)  But we will be back!

Hope you're all doing well.  And my heartfelt thanks for your understanding.

Isabelle

PS:  just to be sure you know, although I'm not working on the code right now, I'm always available daily for everyone on the site just the same.  There's no halt on that!  So contact me if there's anything :)

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19 Jun | Update 12

Hi everyone,

Since last update, we unfortunately encountered a few health setbacks which prevented us from furthering our work in the code in a considerable way.  My husband injured himself at work (back) and was put out for quite some time in the last few weeks.  As for me, my conditions played up again, and so I also needed to take the time to take care of them (plus life stuff jumped in for attention too).  I'd be lying if I said it didn't come with a certain measure of frustration to be kept back from our plans like this...

However, in saying all this, I'm happy to be able to report that we've both picked back up healthwise now and we will be resuming our work shortly.  It's always disappointing to us when these things happen and the delays cause great bother as well.  

We sincerely apologize for how much longer than usual all of this is taking, we're doing the best we can with the annoying interferences coming our way.  Please rest assured that our heartfelt determination isn't waning (it's quite stubborn, in fact) and we will see this very important part to the end no matter what!  That you can be sure is going to happen.

Hope you're all doing well.  Be back in a bit...

Isabelle

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14 May | Update 11

Hi everyone,

In the last few weeks since last update, we did a lot!  We were able to comfortably squeeze in more days to do our work in the code, and so most likely by next weekend (if there are no more surprises left in this messy code), we'll arrive at the stage that all of our work will be able to be carried on solo each in our own times.  So not only on weekends!  This will help to speed things up a bit more.

Of all we did in those few weeks, there was a lot of rewriting of many parts of the code in order to fit them in our new framework's more organized structure, but also to correct missing or erroneous parts to the logic.  We also did a lot of renaming and moving of files (updating their paths in the files calling them too) and renaming variables to our new naming convention.  Additional adjustments were made in our framework's management of the cache and validations, as well as the alerts and site messages.  We also adjusted to improve the new management of pagination, accounts (deleted, disabled, Supporter & standard accounts) and menus.  And now we're working on the sections of the Poet Home and My Page, as well as removing procedural code from our pages' style files and placing those bits where it makes more sense to put them!

We had to halt the conversion of our files a few times in those weeks, 'cause although what we'd done so far was sound, when it came time to implement it in sections we hadn't come across yet in the messy code we're cleaning up, it turned out it wasn't going at it exactly in the most straightforward manner and would most likely lead us in future to the problems we're currently trying to resolve (we're very focused on eliminating all traps and we're confident we're getting there).  So we had to mull over those parts for a bit to ensure we remove that lack of straightforwardness, and we resolved them making sure all the bits work together seamlessly and future bits can be added as seamlessly. 

So now we're back on track converting the files to the new framework's structure.  It's going very well, it's moving on, and we're feeling the most enthusiastic we've ever felt about working in this code.  The difference is world's apart!  (I wish I could show you what I mean 'cause it's truly beautiful!)  It will finally be possible to manage (code-wise) and develop the site, after so many years having been simply impossible.  Please trust me when I say this is very good news for each and every one of us who love PoetBay! :)

Hope you're all doing well.  Be back in a bit...

Isabelle

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02 Apr | Update 10

Hi everyone,

Right, what to say?  I'll be honest that I'm finding doing updates about our work a bit difficult 'cause most of all I can say is very technical from this point on.

But all is going well.  We've spent a lot of time doing some tweaks in the structure of our new framework (to remove any part that could head us toward some faffing) and rewriting many sections of the code (to make all the processes of our functions consistent and more efficient), and we can clearly see the new structure is achieving that.  It's really helping in bringing an order and clarity that've been missing for so long.  It's difficult to convey how exciting all of this is, but believe me, it truly is :)

So with framework tweaked and moved on, it's been possible for us to continue with the conversion of our files to bring all of them under this new structure.  And that's what we've been busy doing.  We still have a ways to go, but step by step, it's getting there!

Hope you're all doing well.  Be back in a bit...

Isabelle

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14 Mar | Update 9

Hi everyone,

Last few weeks back into our work have been encouraging and progressing very well.  Although we'd been away for a long while, it took very little time for us to refresh our memories on the code and pick right back up where we left off.  A very good sign that our new structure is well put together!  Most of all programmers would tell you, returning to a code project after many months usually requires a lot of time to remember what you were doing or what each bit in the code does.  But for the first time, it took very minimal time to recover our bearings (so to speak)!  

So, it's all looking very good, and bringing a lot of happiness our way that we're manifestly on our way to resolving all of these headaches it's been to try working in this messy code we inherited!

Hope you're all doing well.  Be back in a bit...

Isabelle

PS:  Update 9 'cause I'm following on from last year where we left off at Update 8.