Note, I'm talking about around 1995 when the net first came out. Anyway, I'm guessing it was phpBB - but it could have been vBulletin. Anyway, I wonder how the software looked since then, and how it has progressed.
What was the first popular forum software?
- Thread starter Jason76
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I think it was UBB.classic which was written in Perl.
PHP mostly took off during the 2000s.
There are still quite a few big boards running it, if you look around, but my goodness, does it look dated. It's so old that it stores passwords in plain-text and doesn't use a database, just a file for each user and I believe post.
They did a big rewrite in PHP in the early 2000s, but it was a catastrophe.
PHP mostly took off during the 2000s.
There are still quite a few big boards running it, if you look around, but my goodness, does it look dated. It's so old that it stores passwords in plain-text and doesn't use a database, just a file for each user and I believe post.
They did a big rewrite in PHP in the early 2000s, but it was a catastrophe.
Neither was I.
I think the main reason people moved away from Perl is because the flat file model simply didn't scale on large forums (one of the main selling points of PHP was the database MySQL), plus it was slow and in today's modern multi-core world, unless they knew what they were doing, it would have nasty bugs like data races corrupting your data left and right.
I think the main reason people moved away from Perl is because the flat file model simply didn't scale on large forums (one of the main selling points of PHP was the database MySQL), plus it was slow and in today's modern multi-core world, unless they knew what they were doing, it would have nasty bugs like data races corrupting your data left and right.
fantanoice
Madly Diligent
Earliest ones I joined were Ezboard, back around 2002.
B
Bryn
I believe IPB was the first popular one, as the official Game Maker forum was first made back in 2001.
IPB was one of my major big forums that I join back 2009. IPB has always been big regards paid. Well IPB2 was very big and it was used allot. It has slowed down in the passed couple of years.
Then I join SMF forums, phpBB and MyBB and last Xenforo which wasn't till years down. I think the very first software dedicated to forum protocol was WIT...
Then I join SMF forums, phpBB and MyBB and last Xenforo which wasn't till years down. I think the very first software dedicated to forum protocol was WIT...
UBB.threads, which I believe is an indirect successor, looks unbelievably outdated as well; even the latest version.
But at-least it's an upgrade path from UBB.classic, I don't think anyone maintains a converter for them other than UBB lol
It's strange that now we have to be bloated to be current and up-to-date: back in the early 2000s we'd care about slow-speed internet because of dial-up being the norm and broadband just coming in, but now we just assume everyone has unlimited bandwidth, server resources and internet speed. It makes me sad that modern web design is seemingly about reimplementing the browser's functionality in JS, though at least code got cleaner than back then I suppose...
IPS4 is ridiculous, for instance. I tested a cracked install of IPB3 and IPB4 and the loading times on a 2G connection were stupidly better on 3 than 4 because it's just so much more lighter. (I don't condone running cracked software on a live board by the way, only for testing and experimenting with.)
You don't need to make a forum - a chat platform now seen as outdated thanks to social media and proprietary IM - so bloated, is my point. Sure it should look modern but it should also load fast on slower connections as opposed to stuff like Twitter or Instagram.
Don't get me wrong, I do like modern design too but there's something about old design that has a "it just works" feel to it.
IPS4 is ridiculous, for instance. I tested a cracked install of IPB3 and IPB4 and the loading times on a 2G connection were stupidly better on 3 than 4 because it's just so much more lighter. (I don't condone running cracked software on a live board by the way, only for testing and experimenting with.)
You don't need to make a forum - a chat platform now seen as outdated thanks to social media and proprietary IM - so bloated, is my point. Sure it should look modern but it should also load fast on slower connections as opposed to stuff like Twitter or Instagram.
Don't get me wrong, I do like modern design too but there's something about old design that has a "it just works" feel to it.
Not if you take web development seriously. Only now you're not dealing with 56 kb/s, but rather ~ 960 kb/s as a general rule for designing with a poor 3G signal in mind. A lot of people switched from dial-up to their cellular network as their ISP, while others adopted a satellite connection. DSL is still a thing as well.
It's important that if you take your project seriously, that you cater for as many users as possible. It's kind of funny to see it come full circle, only now the problem is more so on cellular networks than home broadband providers.
Ahhhh, okay! That makes sense, but yeah, capped connections are everywhere thanks to mobile data pretty much becoming the norm, so really I feel resources should be compressed and optimised for capped connections (i.e. making a site lighter). I guess if you do take web development seriously you do optimise properly ^^
Absolutely. Not to mention that smartphones, especially the lower-end models, tend to be underpowered. Too much JavaScript or CSS animations will be detrimental to users of such devices. That also applies to older computers but computers are unlikely to thermally throttle from it, unlike phones. So now you'd have a slower-than-slow phone and a slower connection.
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