Please remove Recommended Build. Bukkit has not released yet there is no Recommended Build!

My advice: stop reading the forums. At some point you are going to have to (i hope. god think of the nightmare it is to make them all happy!) I would much rather have development move forward than try and form some false sense of stability with "RBs". And it is false. 1.4 comes out and RBs won't matter. A mod requires you to *GASP* install mysql? RBs won't matter. Still can't put a tab in a yml file? RBs don't help that. Still can't get Bobspluginv0.245.b2 to work with jimseconomyv2.56.b14 if you have samsnpcshopsv0.0.0.0001a because your awesomeskillzv20.4 mod keeps fighting with your antigreifprotection mod and now your world is overrun with people exploiting infinite dupes? ... which RB fixed that again? ... there went about 50-60% of the call drivers.

If they can get the server running in the first place and format a permissions file they can figure out how to not upgrade their CB till they ... ohhhh I donno... have tested it? Make a test server? port 26565? Check the depth before you go head first?

oh, and how exactly do RBs help this: "it doesnt work. what a load of #$%!. your mod sucks. you suck. why do i have to configure this. someone make a vid tut. im on windows if that helps" .

...ya, trust me... we knew you were on windows....hmmm coffee rant today was ranty... sry bout that, but I agree with the OP. I'd rather see everyone beating down the new hotness instead of last weeks old and busted.

 

I both love and hate RB's. The RB's allow users to easily find a single build that is most likely to work with whatever plugin they want, but at the same time slow down discovery of bugs in the newer builds.

I would hope RB's haven't stopped devs updating their plugins for the newer builds - I see it causing more work for the devs. They would ideally have two versions: A RB based version, and a version for the latest builds. However, I've seen a lot of devs just stop working on anything except the latest RB.

Would everyone be happier if the RB's got released once a week, say every Sunday night? That way weekend playing isn't interrupted by lack of plugin updates.

 

I would agree with that. Is it possible to handle it like this?

 

Anything is possible, but the community should come to a consensus.

 

Please start a thread in which you ask because everybody watches a thread from a mod. would be really nice

 

I don't understand the people complaining about how long it's been between RBs, especially suggesting an RB be released every week. The brunt of the pushes between 556 and 592 were posted during a 5 day period, that wouldn't even be covered in the 1-week RB posting period.
As for RBs slowing development, that's just BS.
The devs push what they can, and when THEY find it stable they mark an RB. Do they need 5000+ people using the cutting edge complaining about a bug they know exists that they haven't gotten around to fixing yet? No.

As a plugin dev, I only develop for the latest RB, I keep an eye on the git commits for Bukkit though, so I'm ready to update when it's marked as RB, but I don't bother changing my code until that point. Why? Because look at the three (Maybe more now?) builds that completely broke every plugin in existence. And that's another reason to use RBs, in a span of three days, they changed the plugin interface not once, but three different times. Think of how that would have gone over without RBs, you'd have plugins supporting ~12 different builds because nobody updates every time a commit is made, servers wouldn't be able to get everything working together, etc.

Even WITH the RBs you get people who just don't listen, they'll run 492 and ask why your plugin doesn't work with it. The last thing I want as a plugin dev is people asking me why my plugin broke between arbitrary commit A and arbitrary commit B.

RBs give plugin devs a target, before they implemented them we just picked a build at random, and hoped that things didn't change. Now we have something stable to aim for, and yes, it's been a week since the last RB (I don't count from the 15th to the 23rd as barely anything was commited during that time) but that's because the devs are currently working on implementing LARGE changes, not something they can get out in a day or two. Give them time, and when they're ready to say their work is done, they'll mark a new RB.

Also, just because I find it funny, here's the commit times for the latest builds (Since a lot of people probably don't actually _look_ at this, they just see the number go up 40 and go into whine mode).
Mar 17 - 21 : Build 557 - 560
Mar 23 : 561 - 565
Mar 24 : 566 - 571
Mar 25 : 572 - 577
Mar 26 : 578 - 587
Mar 27 : 588 - 591
So to everyone saying the number has gone up so much, it's only gone up that much in 5 days, give them time to finish the large projects they're working on.

 

@Drakia props on the srsly long reply, this should pretty much end the discussion?

 

well I would like to chip in:

a) wait for 1.4 for the next RB, it looks like it is really close and 1.4 will break bukkit and nevertheless and requires plugins to be recoded too.
b) in future keep RB, but make them more frequent... but not fixed... as that doesn't make sense.. RB should almost be milestones which are implemented or severe bugfixes WITHOUT any additional code changes
c) calm down... RB are needed as you need something to aim for as developer and admin, if you need / want bleeding edge compile your own, most plugins are open and sourcecode available or ask the plugin developer you make you a new build.. and perhaps donate him some money

I'm still waiting for a full craftbook build... after that I will set up the FIRST officially bukkit server.. atm i have only testing servers... but during the time I started till now it was already a mess to find versions of plugins which works with the build I was using.. especially as I use a lot of plugins.

so tl:dr... keep RB but make them resemble milestones or bugfixes without additional code changes

 

So if the bukkit team wants REALLY good feedback, lets start a a bukkit server that only runs the latest build, updates at midnight gmt via automation, etc.

 

Will you make this server?

 

Does the community want me to?

 

Post own thread much will read because of your purple dev tag.

 

Oh, come on people, nobody is forcing anyone to use those recommended builds. Some people just expect everything to be run like a company taking in large funding, but this is a community effort! I'm sure most developers have other jobs or are students, and probably have better things to do than to help this community have some fun. A big Thank You to all you developers by the way!

We have recommended builds for those who would like some stability when creating and playing in a plugin based server that isn't even near being finalized yet! Otherwise, as test software, you are more than welcome to use the latest, bleeding edge builds that might not even be compatible with many already stable plugins, because the developers haven't had the time to update and retest just yet(based on their already busy lives).

Personally, I would always welcome knowing what build is at least stable enough for playing with many plugins, then to have a non-working server that I end up pulling my hair out to trying to troubleshoot, not realizing that the plugins haven't been updated to work with that latest build yet! This way, if I want to take a chance and go for bleeding edge, I have the choice, just as all of you do, and test what might work or not, and probably help out the community by providing my input.

K, rant done!

 

My "purble dev tag" doesn't make me any more official than the next guy; its not a badge accreditation or anything it just says I can code and chose to do so to help out the community. But if thats what people want..

http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/bukkit-test-servers.10303/

 

What the? Not a single sentence makes sense.
RBS are not about everything working for the user. RBs are about having a set version for all plugin devs to be compatible with!

 

Op was saying that theres not enough testing going on cause of Rb's well clearly thats a load of shit cause the last 30 build have mostly been bug fixes.

/thread

 

lol - sorry.

I was referring to the "RBs saved the forums from people bitching about stuff breaking" cuz it didn't, and it didn't make sense that it would. I understand they were so devs had a stable target, but I agree with the OP that the point isn't to have a stable target. Things change so fast around here that if I go to the lake for a day and a half my server is so far out of date bell bottoms showed back up on the rack at hot topic. I never claimed to have a better idea, I dont. But now I feel obligated to at least offer a suggestion ...and I don't have one. I don't know how to strike a balance here. I haven't seen a feature or an update that CB has had that wasn't pretty ground breakingly important and useful. And like most people my server runs many, many plugins that have a hard enough time working together without one being for the last RB and another being for the latest build so it can have feature X. The problem I have more often than not there is actually that plugin 3 needs plugin 1 and plugin 2 but since they are fighting plugin 3 doesn't work. That isn't CBs fault, or plugin 3s fault, or plugin 1s (it's all 2... we hate 2) And as an admin I get locked into running the latest RB on my live server and no one but me and the wife are on the test server ... testing the dev build. No one wants to let go of the plugins we have working when this week's lotto killed towny and last weeks killed something else they spent 3 weeks working on so they just latch onto whatever is working at the moment. RBs are feeling more like an anchor that a life vest.

Anywho, don't confuse my really bad impersonation of an out of control forum poster with anything based in reality, just pointing out that RBs don't really help them at all, and in practice can make things worse (although it likely wont in most cases). In the end, I'm having the same issues juggling the server administration as I did before RBs and I'm starting to see the same issues with devs juggling multiple versions as well. Maybe the "Oops I broke your plugins" thread wasn't a bad way to go... just maybe "some" bukkit devs should practice patience more and not post "oops", then update CB. Maybe... wait a few days?

RBs take away a lot of the user base from testing the latest dev build. Testing builds make the project go. We need things. Things to make us go.

 

Guess I should post this here too:

There appears to be some confusion as to how the Recommended Builds system works, so I hope this clears it up. With the Recommended Builds system, we try and aim for a new RB being promoted every week or so, but nothing says we absolutely have to stick to this schedule.

The system is designed so that even if we were to never promote a new RB ever again, people would have a stable server to deal with and things will work fine. As such, plugin developers are NOT expected to update anything past the current RB. HOWEVER, we hope they are still actively following development to prepare their plugins for the next RB, if and when it comes.

We try to give everyone as much of a heads up as possible so that when the next RB hits, people aren't scrambling to fix their code - it should already be fixed - they're just scrambling to release their newest builds. Ideally, plugin developers should have a development build system of their own (like ci.bukkit.org) so that people can help them test their plugins with the latest Bukkit development builds so that everyone is ready for the next RB, but we understand if some plugin developers don't have the time, want, care or resources to do this.

A lot of people have asked us to slow down on developing new builds and that is what the Recommended Builds system allows us to do.

When we release Bukkit, we'll begoing with a "release early, release often" attitude employing a Major.minor.bugfix versionng system where:

• Major version increments will occur when breakages occur.
• Minor version increments will occur when new features are added, but backwards compatbility is still retained.
• Bugfix version increments will occur when small bugfixes are made.

Development will be ongoing, but releases will be version based and staggered.

 

Claiming that "nobody is updating their plugins past RB" is a bit disrespectful to plugin devs... In fact, a lot of plugins don't use events at all, and probably don't even need "fixing".
If you spent 20 seconds looking at the Plugin Releases forum instead of crying OMGWTFBBQ, you'd see several that are already tested with 561+.

 

The problem is not the few plugins that have update to support 561+ its the major 1's that have not Such as WorldEdit World Guard Big Brother Those are all Key plugins to most servers and they dont seem to want to update past the RB i think thats where Most Peoples Problems Lie Not In the Rb system Its self. The Problem is At the plugin Dev level atm IMO

 

"A lot of people have asked us to slow down on developing new builds and that is what the Recommended Builds system allows us to do."

That sentence can mean two entirely different things. I think there is some fear of one meaning over the other, and in some cases there is at least anecdotal evidence suggesting it might be the case. I can see that point of view so I am attempting to draw attention to it. My only personal concern is the version wars between plugins themselves. The gaps between rb and b have an effect on synchronicity like the moon has an effect on the tide.

The more people and the more servers that are trying to run all these plugins together at a time on the latest build, the more gets caught and fixed before the next RB. The more people jumping from RB to RB means each RB there will be more "where the hell did that come from?" bugs and a lot of mad scrambling to fix the broken stuff. Everything has its pros and cons.


edit:
"The problem is not the few plugins that have update to support 561+ its the major 1's that have not"

^^ And that is exactly why people are jumping from RB to RB. We have too-big-to-fail plugins and if they don't update, we don't update. So NewPluginX that uses new_features gets shafted as well as anyone that wants to use it until we leap.

Leap Sam, Leap.

 

So wait, we as plugin devs want to stick to a stable version that we can be pretty much guaranteed most people will have (The bukkit team RECOMMENDS this version) and it's OUR fault that you wanted to get bleeding-edge and our stuff doesn't work for you? That's bullshit.
The RB is just that, a RECOMMENDED BUILD as recommended by the Bukkit team. It was to give plugin devs something to aim for, and to give users something to use that they can be sure plugins will support.

In actuality, the problem is the end-users, the server admins who can't wait a freaking week to update their server (Read: #36), they need the bleeding-edge NOW, and all of their plugins are supposed to be updated the minute the git commit gets pushed through. The users who think that plugin devs are their personal coders, and everything should be done exactly how they want.

Plugin devs aim for an RB, users are supposed to use the RB, and anybody trying to use bleeding edge should be well aware that 90% of plugins won't work if they break something such as event names. If you want your release server to use the latest build instead of the latest RB, then learn to code, or higher a real programmer, but don't try to blame us for your screwups.

 

the love, it flows... so let me paraphrase what you just said for clarification:

The pre release development phase of CB should continue to use a system where most people should sit at the last bus stop and wait while the plugin devs work on finding and fixing bugs in a system that doesnt work for most anyone but them. Meanwhile the plebs should go back to enjoying the pretty flashy things while continuing to provide unpaid q/a, documentation and support for the unpaid plugin devs. insert argument for free software here, sing oliver.

that about it? I'm sorry if that sounds a bit snippish but your tone seemed to imply that people trying to help should stfu and like it. maybe your threads are full of whining end users but this thread (i think) was started on "because certain major plugins are not keeping up with the dev build my large server population isn't able to provide free bug hunting for fresh plugins that are".

 

@kwg Half of your post made zero sense, and I couldn't understand the other half.
However, here's a hearty attempt at deciphering it!

Yes, end-users (Read: Admins) should sit and use the RB and wait patiently for the next one. Why? Because the RB is what plugin devs are supposed to aim for, it's what the Bukkit team deems stable enough for mass testing.
What's a pleb? Anyways. The users (Again, admins) are NOT unpaid Q/A, they are users of in-development FREE software.

Your statement about major plugins not keeping up, by the way, is you being a whiny end user It's also what I called bullshit on. Plugins have the option of switching to a non-RB, however the bukkit devs have stated that RBs are there for plugin devs to have a target to work towards, so that all plugins can work together.

The problem is end users like yourself, and others who DEMAND that they have things updated right away. Unless you're a programmer working to debug for the latest version, you shouldn't be running anything other than the RB.

 

Here's how I approach running a bleeding edge server:
Run with the plugins I want - if any cause errors or don't work, I message the dev and let them know. If I can't live without the plugin, I go back to a build that works (usually the latest RB).

I would love to see devs have a RB version and a latest BE version, but obviously thats a lot of work that many devs may not want to do.

Either way, the system, as it is, is just fine IMO. Plugin devs should keep a RB compatible build and I've seen better plugin compatibility come from having RB's. Yes, it means you may have to suck it up and run the latest RB instead of the latest BE, but really, is that such a problem? Think of the latest bug fixes as features to look forward to in the next release, and not as something you must have right now.

 

ple·be·ian noun \pli-ˈbē-ən\
Definition of PLEBEIAN
1
: a member of the Roman plebs
2
: one of the common people

Seriously, I never demanded anything. I agreed with the OP that major plugins lagging on the RB (which is fine) are keeping (no fault assigned) server admins (read:users) from testing new features on a large scale (which is not a desired consequence of RBs).But thanks for calling me a problem.


edit:
@tnt, that's exactly what we have running. I have a live server running the latest RB and a test server on another port running the latest build. and if something breaks I msg the dev. but that is just limited to "does it start" really. no users are there using all the features, commands, etc and telling me that something doesnt work

 

No No u got me all wrong I don't think dev's should have to keep up with more than the RB's Most of the time But the situation where A lot of People (thats the key A lot Not just 1 Bitching server owner) Would like to go upto Above 561 Because there is no Rb Up that High and a lot of People would like it Plugin Dev's should show Initiative and Compile a build for those People That would like it.

Lets face it 561 is no where near bleeding edge Its old U should already have the code to upgrade sitting a side ready to go when the next Rb comes out. If ur not that organized Ur doing well to have A good plugin.

To sum it all up this fits nicely.

What are rules and guidelines Or even statements with out exceptions

 

@RustyDagger I have many good plugins and I didn't bother actually coding the update until EvilSeph told the plugin devs that an RB was coming out in a day. Why? Because there was no telling what else would change between commits, there was no point in me updating anything until I was sure there wouldn't be any more API changes.

 

Excuse the following short rant. This is the most ignorant post I've ever seen.

 

Why the necropost?