Last couple of days

Karl

The last couple of days, I have been either publishing extensions of my own or approving extensions built by others.

I hope that 2.x is bringing the Golden Age of Flarum.

datlechin

Karl Thank you for approving my discussion very quickly 😄

ernestdefoe

Seems like extensions are coming from all over. If I can ever get Claude to work right I am going to be releasing one I think most people might like.

Capybara

Karl It’s great that we already have such an impressive collection of extensions for 2.x. At this point, the only major missing pieces are the extensions by Clark, and then 99% of forums could realistically migrate to 2.x.

And once we get the new version of the catalog, there’ll already be a huge number of 2.x-compatible extensions available right away

Karl

datlechin I check the official flarum forum every 5 minutes of the day and receive enough emails to catch everything lol.

ernestdefoe expensive 😛

Capybara he has a huge collection and he is a one man team. He's a GOAT. Really helped me adopt Flarum when I first found it.

Capybara

Karl Clark created such an impressive number of extensions even before the rise of modern AI tools. In a way, our AI are learning from his example 😅

Though personally, I’m training the AI using Hüseyin’s extensions as examples — I really like his style

Karl

Capybara it's definitely a fine tool to use when you have it figured out. Cuts development time down, but I haven't been able to attest to that personally. It's been a great proofreader for me though and catching syntax errors and other miniscule issues that just break everything 😛

ram0ng1

Personally, I really liked Clark's style! Even with the knowledge I already had, AI has pushed me forward significantly.

Capybara

Karl I’m currently finishing my card battle extension, and Claude has been helping me a lot with analyzing 5,000+ lines of code. Without it, I’d spend much more time hunting down bugs. I used to rely on ChatGPT for simpler analysis tasks, but in my experience it’s a bit less accurate and slower. I still use it for translating extensions, though, because it supports significantly larger token limits

navindra

Out of curiosity, why do extensions need approval here? I see spam gets posted without any approval. (Sorry, only a joke!) 😂

Karl

navindra it's a liability. From my understanding it's to mitigate bad actors, vague descriptions, etc. And of course to mitigate spam. Users also post in theExtensions tag every now and then for support.

Some spam does get caught on a filter. But some fall through the cracks. I'm the crack sniffler.

Capybara

Lol

navindra

Karl Ah! First time I was like, what am I doing wrong?

Indeed, the spammers are creative. luceos' spam filters are doing a lot of heavy work for me.

navindra

Karl Golden Age of Flarum

I feel the opposite, like Flarum lost many active developers and I'm not sure I understand why. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for all the new extensions, but it seems like there was a ton of activity before even in the pre-AI era.

Karl

navindra what am I doing wrong?

Everything 🤣

navindra there was definitely a lot before for sure. And people fall out for many reasons, life being a heavy hitter for the vast majority. Some have stuck and hopefully the ones that are sticking right now actually stick.

@GreXXL and @IanM are keeping the show running from my point of view. ❤️

ram0ng1

navindra True... Many developers have left or aren't very active in the Flarum community lately

Karl

For those chiming in, what would contribute to devs wanting to stay for the long haul? I don't plan on going anywhere, but I also want to encourage continued growth for Flarum.

ram0ng1

Karl I guess that’s inevitable... I’ve gone through periods where I couldn't dedicate myself to anything else either. Life gets busy, working full-time during business hours... that’s just how it is, not much we can do about it.

ernestdefoe

Well I'm no coder or developer but I am trying with the help of AI. Even with using AI I can see why people get burnt out doing it all by hand. I highly respect those people. I wish I had the understanding to do all of that.

navindra

Karl For those chiming in, what would contribute to devs wanting to stay for the long haul? I don't plan on going anywhere, but I also want to encourage continued growth for Flarum.

It seems like major version upgrades can be near fatal for many an open source project. The API compatibility break is a tough pill to swallow for many.

I don't think this is unique to Flarum, and Flarum probably didn't have any choice in the matter given that all the technology it is built on basically shifted underneath it.

The other problem it with Flarum is that monetization seems to be difficult or near impossible. So nobody can make a living on it. And those that attempt it may find themselves a little at odds with the community.