Can you give us a brief background on yourself?

I'm 19 years of age and currently living with my family in Sydney, Australia. I'm currently studying full time and managing a huge wad of jobs on my shoulders.

In the late 1990's whilst still in Primary School I entered the "wonderful world" of programming. A class mate introduced me into MS-DOS' QBASIC. At the time I only had (and still have one of them) ex-lease laptops that my dad had purchased from his work. We're talking machines with 22Mhz processors, 4mb RAM and 40mb hard disk drives. I'd play around with Windows 3.11 on these machines, constantly breaking them and getting in to trouble for doing so.

1999 saw my family buy our first personal computer (180mhz for a price of $999). This took me to Windows 98 and was the first time I'd had access to the Internet (apart from primary school computers at lunch time). I became hooked. Late 1999 and 2000 saw me taking up HTML and Perl. At the time, the craze with Perl was a script called "EveryAuction" - an online auction script. I developed numerous modifications and spent hours upon days playing around enhancing my self-taught knowledge. (Two modifications still exist: http://forum.everysoft.com/cgi-bin/codepost.pl?action=view&id=236)

Interests changed and I shifted to discussion systems as my primary web development interest.

Matt Light, a friend of mine who I'd met through working for a web hosting company, introduced me in to PHP around the end of 2000. It was difficult but a lot easier to use than Perl. Eventually I moved on to developing XMB (eXtreme Message Board) with the original development team, web34rk and b0ndman. This was my first experience working with other people as a team and collaborating together on a project. Eventually they left, the team was replaced and I was the lead developer along with two others. Staff shifted again, new "management" came in place and a few of us didn't like the way things were headed so we forked and created DevBB.

DevBB was the predecessor to MyBB, a temporary solution for people to use whilst we developed MyBB. Development teams changed and changed once again and here we are today - from 2002 to 2006 and still with MyBB.

I'm also a web standards advocate (since around 2005 - well, I like to think I am) and have now extended my web development knowledge to include XHTML, CSS and Javascript as well as several other platform specific application programming languages. I like to follow new emerging technologies such as Ruby on Rails and interesting new Javascript developments and technologies.


What made you decide to start MyBB?

As I mentioned above, it was primarily because my interest in XMB was dying and the management there weren't doing anything good for the product. I'd been working on this super top secret project, MyBB for a little while before I left. Functionality was near zero but it was a start and once other developers had decided to leave XMB too, it was time for us to work together and as a result we began work on MyBB as a team.


How have your roles with MyBB impacted your life?

Imagine waking up and the first thing you think about is this "damn PHP script" which you're responsible for. Imagine the same thing except for when you fall asleep. Just kidding!

MyBB has had a fairly strong impact on my life - I'll spend days on end coding instead of socializing at times because it is what I feel like doing and I feel I have to. I try not to let MyBB impact my life in such a serious way that it is always what I'm thinking about.


Do you work on any projects other than MyBB, or is this your full time job?

I'm busy. Very busy. As well as MyBB I also work several other jobs:

• Customer service assistant / Night fill manager at a retail store
• Network administrator at a local primary school (Coincidently, the one I learnt at)
• Managing my own business

This is all along side with studying full time at college.

In terms of actual projects, I am working on several other projects including a bug tracking application, a web hosting control panel which allows users on my server to manage their resources and various client projects here and there.


What do you do to relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of MyBB?

When I'm not working on MyBB, generally I'm either at college or working one of my jobs. On the rare occasion when I'm not, or I feel the need to take a break, I'll spend the day surfing the internet learning something new, watching some of my favourite TV shows, or spend the day doing something with my family and friends.

I only take a holiday away from everything once per year which involves my family and several other families going down the south coast of Australia and enjoying the sun, water and boating activities.


What forums do you visit other than the MyBB forums?

I tend to try and stay away from a lot of forums because I know I'll most likely end up registering and spending way too much time visiting them whilst I could be working on other things (primarily MyBB).

The only forums I actively visit apart from the MyBB ones are the Messenger Plus! Forums (http://www.msghelp.net - Administrator), The Forum Insider (http://www.foruminsider.com), Neowin.net (http://www.neowin.net), and Overclockers Australia (http://www.overclcockers.com.au)


Will we ever have to pay for MyBB in the future?

No, no and more no.


How do you handle supporting a free product?

I work my rear end off with all of my jobs! That is what I do!

Seriously, it isn't even a question for me to support MyBB or not. MyBB is like my child and I'll continue to support it - whether it be paying for the server, managing domain registration, buying additional services or just supporting users in general.


What MyBB feature are you most proud of?

Not one feature, but the whole product as a whole.


If you were advising a future forum owner, what is the one reason you would give him or her to use MyBB over any other?

I wouldn't want them to - I'd want them to compare the products they like and end up using something they're comfortable with and suits their needs. If their choice in MyBB then that is excellent. If it isn't, that doesn't matter.

A user needs to feel comfortable with the product they're using, so telling them "X and Y" are excellent features and are the reasons they should use MyBB may be worth nothing to them as those features are something they may not use or have a need for.


Firefox or Internet Explorer?

Firefox, only because of its support for web standards. Browser security (in my opinion) is entirely the responsibility of the user.


Was there ever a point at which you thought MyBB would not work out as planned? If so, how did you overcome this?

Several.

Overcoming this was easy. Every so often people would post some really nice comments about MyBB or the team and it is a real motivational lifter to keep working on the product and solving any problems which I may have been facing at the time.


What upcoming MyBB feature are you most excited about?

In our upcoming release, I'm excited equally about a few things

We've implemented auto completion of usernames (commonly known as auto suggest), inline thread subject editing and inline message editing using "AJAX" based technologies.

Also new is the implementation of "data handlers", a set of classes which revolve around handling data input and validation within MyBB. (More on that here: http://www.surfionline.com/archives/2006/01/06/mybb-development-tally-ho/)

There's also something else in the release that I'm excited about and we've tried to keep a secret from users. But I'll let you in on a secret, exclusively for AdminFusion readers.

Feedback I've received on the reputation system currently in MyBB isn't all that good. People don't like the way it works and it is very susceptible to abuse. We've made some changes based on the reputation system designed by WDZ of the Messenger Plus! Forums. The new reputation system is not post centered anymore, but user centered. You can give a reputation once per user and in the future you can then edit or delete that reputation. Reputation votes can only be positive, negative or neutral and are displayed publicly on a "reputation feedback" page. Think of a system similar to eBay's Feedback system.


How do you see the forum industry changing over the next 5 years?

People are going to continue being hyped up over "web 2.0" technologies such as AJAX functionality. We're going to see forum interfaces become more dynamic with no refresh required to see new content. It may sound cool, but it is misuse of the technology and will present problems such as accessibility and usability - not to mention would make it difficult to browse busy forums if a thread listing keeps changing its order, with items appearing and items disappearing as threads are updated.

People are going to fall for this technology because it is so hyped up and they think it is "groovy", but it presents significant problems as well.

Another change I've noticed recently and I think will also continue is the increased popularity in simple discussion products such as PunBB and miniBB. These are very small packages with very lite user interfaces which are gaining in popularity.


What is the most important thing you have learned through your experience with MyBB?

Check, check and then check again all code that you write and don't take things for granted. Things can quite easily come back and bite you on the rear end (especially in terms of security vulnerabilities)


If you could take one thing back that you did at MyBB, what would it be?

Initially, the development team (our first one with MyBB) didn't care much
for standards. Code would go in and be a mess and nobody would really care. This led to several problems including bad code which contained security vulnerabilities and code which was difficult to navigate through.

Thanks to standards advocate, Peter Akkies, a newer member of the MyBB development team and a good friend of mine, things are changing and quickly. We've developed stricter coding and database standards and have discussed the future of the project in regards to code. Our upcoming release, MyBB 1.2 is a huge milestone release in terms of code and coding standards and we're eagerly looking forward to it.


If you were to start your own community and MyBB was not in existence, which forum software would you use?

If I were to start a small site I'd probably decide on using PunBB. PunBB is an excellent light forum package (what I consider to be in a different market to MyBB) which is fast and looks clean too.

If I were attempting to start a larger community then I'd go with a more commercial product, probably Invision Power Board.


What is the most common mistake that you see forum owners making?

You ask any forum developer this question and you'll most likely get a stock standard response along the lines of people rush in to creating too many forums quickly without the user base or posts to fill them. As a result their board looks a lot more empty than if they'd stuck with a smaller number of forums and then expanded out in the future.


If the entire staff of MyBB were stranded on a deserted island, who would be the first to be eaten and why?

I didn't know how to answer this and who'd be the first to be eaten.

I threw the question toward the MyBB staff and they couldn't make their mind up either. I'm placing my money on that they'd all be eaten because they couldn't make a decision! Of course, they'd probably try sacrifice me instead.


I'd actually like to add a bit more if I could...

MyBB would be no where today without our developers (past and present), support team members, translators and other staff. To those users I'm extremely grateful that they are (or were) participating in the project and adding their input. They're all highly regarded and I'm pleased with the effort that each and every one of them puts in - remember, they aren't getting paid.

I'd also like to thank those who use MyBB and our active participants on our community forums. You guys helped make and shape MyBB too - and a huge thanks from me to each and every one of you.




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