The sense in starting large programming /skinning projects with vb4 coming up

[Alfa1]

Jelsoft is working on vbulletin 4 and judging from the speed with which version numbers are ramping up, I assume it cant be very long before we start seeing something.

vBulletin 4 is an extensive rewrite of the vBulletin system, ...

...new semantic XHTML templates, whose layout can be restyled and edited with CSS.

Architecturally, vBulletin 4 follows MVC (model-view-controller) object oriented principles...

Because of the nature of the new code, we will be working much more closely with the plug-in community to provide information and help in getting existing modifications ready for vBulletin 4, so that there is already a library of exciting and well-written plug-ins ready at launch time.

I am planning a number of large and small coding projects to get my sites functionality increased and am planning to get one or more skins designed and coded. However, I do fear that starting this will result in double the amount of work. I fear that once vb4 is released all has to be redone. I would love to get some thoughts and inputs from fellow admins, coders and if possible vb staff.

What's your take on this?

[Lynne]

I started my forum four years ago when 3.0 was new. Since then I've seen 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7 all get released and 3.8 is just around the corner. That's one version a year. There will always be another version of vBulletin in the works and you will always be one step behind if you have a moderately modified board.

[Dismounted]

vBulletin 4 is still seems pretty far away. You really just have to think about "Do I want this now?" or "Can I hold off this modification for a while?".

[SEOvB]

I'd just do it and deal with it down the road

[Alfa1]

I would not mind hiring a team of coders and getting these projects off the ground, if it was going to take a year, before vb4 was going to come out and this has to be dealt with. To me it seems as if it will take less than 6 months before vb4 comes out. Let me explain why:

I know this is highly speculative, but 3.7.4 seems more a bug fix than a new version.
IMHO 3.8 does not have rigorous changes from 3.7.3 and does not differ from 3.7, like 3.7 differs from 3.6.
It seems that Jelsoft uses version numbers with much higher speed than usual. This makes me wonder if vb4 is really that far away.

What do you think?

[Alfa1]

This is what I expected:The vBulletin 4 project is progressing quickly and we are in a position to share some further information about what to expect in our next new major version release.

In August, we announced a major overhaul of the code base. Rather than targeting all of these changes in a single, long-term release, we intend to accomplish all the planned improvements over a number of versions. In order to achieve this goal, the largest vBulletin development team ever assembled is now working within an Agile development process, allowing us to deliver new features into your hands faster.

...We are working hard and plan to have vBulletin 4.0 released in beta form in early Q2 of 2009.

What are your thoughts now?

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