John, few points about GitHub and XOOPS using it:
Quote:
I will keep my modules on my server, I did not want to have to open a github account, but it seems You have to, to install Xoops Now. Which I think is very wrong.
you don't have to have account on GitHub to download XOOPS or any of the modules from there.
For example, you can go right now to our XOOPS link:
https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCoreand click on the "Download Zip" and download it.
Quote:
Since when did the meaning of the word fork change? To me fork will ALWAYS mean taking the software and creating your own thing out of it. Like ICMS is a fork of Xoops. Who ever changed the meaning of that word was wrong to do so.
There are forks and there are forks!
a) "split forks" that just go separate ways never to merge
b) "version control forks" that are done to add a feature or fix a bug, and once tested, they are submitted to be merged back into the "trunk". This helps to keep the "trunk" clean and working, while allowing many people to collaborate on the development without stepping on each other toes. It is a tremendous help in team development and that's why we've seen such an explosion in people using Git in general, and GitHub in particular.
I can only encourage you to open an account and start using it by creating a repository for Alumni, to which we all can then contribute. Once you start using it, you'll wonder how you could ever live without it!
For example, in case of Alumni, this the
original code from you on GitHub. This is the
fork on GitHub I did. There I can make changes and I can submit them to you for merging via a "Pull Request".
If you click on the "
10 commits" on top, GitHub will show you the changes that I've made.
Then you can see the individual changes, and you can click on them, and you can see exactly what has changed, for example
here.
And if this was a part of a "Pull request", you could just review these changes and accept them, and you're done. As the "owner" of the repository, you'll be able to decide what will be accepted and what will be rejected. So there is no risk in getting "polluted" with code of questionable quality.
Let's face it -
for collaborative development as XOOPS is, there is nothing better at the moment. Of course, for people who like to develop by themselves, this won't be of interest.
As a side benefit, there are TONS of tools that are linked to GitHub that make development so much easier, and improve quality as well as team work.
For example, for quality, I can run the code through a static code analyzer and see the results and if they make sense, make the changes to the code. You can see result for Alumni here:
SenisoLabsInsightCodeClimateCodacyScrutinizerAll of these tools take the code from GitHub.
I can only encourage you to give it a try, and I promise you - once you do, you'll never look back!