Firstly, we would like to say a huge thanks to James (Aka theFinn) for taking the time to answer our questions!


How/When did you first start coding and why?

I think I wrote my first bit of code when I was 8 (1987). I had an
old Atari 800XL and I copied a game program out of the back of an old
Atari magazine. I spent hours copying it out and in the end it never
really worked well. I didn't know about 'debugging' back then so it
never really worked well.

In Jr. High I got more into computers and started writing games in
basic. My friends and I wrote little text adventures in Qbasic to amuse
ourselves.

I got involved in web development in my last year in college (1999) when
I found PHP. I wrote some scripts for my wifes (then girlfriend)
website, she needed a forum so I started coding up phpBB, the rest is
history as they say. I've been a professional PHP web developer since
'99, I currently work for a travel software company.


How did you get involved in creating forum systems?

This is pretty much answered in #1, my wife needed a forum and I
found the other options at the time (UBB, Phorum) to be either too
expensive or not to my liking.


What is your main roll as a team member?

I'm currently the project manager, I handle the adverting sales on
phpBB.com and provide project direction.


What do you enjoy most about phpBB?

I enjoy most helping to create something that a pretty large number
of people find useful. I get a lot of satisfaction out of having my
project used by so many people.


What do you feel the best features of phpBB are?

Hmm, this is a tough one. Obviously there aren't many features that
we have that everyone else hasn't emulated already so I think the best
feature is probably our community. We have a HUGE community with a lot
of knowledge about our product. A novice looking to setup a forum on
their website will probably find phpBB easier to setup then our
competitors and if they run into problems they will probably get help
faster because of our community.


What do you think users should get out of a forum system and why?

Another hard one. It comes down to a person-by-person basis. You
should get out of a forum exactly what you need to get out of it. If a
forum doesn't meet your needs it's not the right one for you. That's the
stance we've always taken at phpBB. We don't include features such as
calendars and chat because we feel that these aren't needs that a forum
needs to meet. A forum should provide a system for the users of your
site to interact and create community. If it's trying to do much more
then this, it's probably bloated.


What advice would you give to somebody who is starting his or her own community?

Start small. Don't try and create a huge community and overwhelm your
users with too many options. You need to keep people coming back and the
best way to do that is to have the community on your site very
accessible. Don't try and create as many forums as you can think of and
hope people will need them. Create a few core discussion areas and
expand as needed. Foster discussion and community will grow.


How has phpBB changed over the years?

That's the great thing about phpBB. We haven't really changed too
much over the years. We've been strong and stable for a long time. We
keep adding features and improving our code base like any software of
course, but the people involved in the project have remained the same
for some time and we've stuck to our original ideals of creating the
very best forum software we can.


How does phpBB compare with some of the other forum systems available?

I can't really answer this one because I don't spend very much time
looking at other forum software. We've got features they don't have,
they have features we don't have. Of the major pieces of software out
there who have been around for a while we've all hit a state where we're
stable and featureful, so it really comes down to what you like the best
and what works for you and your site.


How many people are now in the phpBB team?

About 30 something I think now.


If you were going to start an online community, which forum software (excluding your own) would you use, and why?

Probably Simple Machines, but only because I work with a guy who's
on their team and he'd make me use it.


What would you consider more important; user interface or masses of features?

User Interface for sure! If your users can't use your interface your
features are worthless. A lot of developers get into the trap of adding
feature after feature without giving any thought to how they can
interact intelligently and in the end you have a piece of software that
nobody but the developers can use.


How long does it usually take the phpBB team to make a stable release?

Point releases (bug and security fixes) take anywhere from a couple
days to a couple weeks. For major releases we have a history of working
on them for years. Traditionally our devs have been perfectionists, we
take a very long time to finish a major stable release. We're trying to
change that and have shorter development cycles so we'll see how that
works out post 3.0.


How do you think forum systems in general will change in the future?

Not sure, only time will tell. I don't see any major changes in
basic functionality in the future, I think we're coming up on a plateau
in regards to features so I think we'll mostly see advancements in user
interface (AJAX will play a roll I'm sure) to make things easier to
navigate. It all comes down to what the users want in the end though...


What does the future hold for phpBB?

3.0 (Olympus) is coming soon (no really, I mean it!) and that'll be
a very large step forward for phpBB. We're not looking too far beyond
that at the moment, there's a lot of work to be done there. After that,
only time will tell.


Thanks James For This Great Interview! Good luck to you and the rest of the great phpBB team!




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