How/When did you first start coding and why?

My first experience with coding came in the mid 80s. My dad brought
home a Commodore VIC-20. My cousin (now our CTO) and I copied BASIC
programs from the back of the manual.

My first "real" experience came when I started messing with FoxPro to
fill some gaps in the IT department at a company I worked for during
college. The IT department did not have time to do all we needed. So,
I stepped up and hacked out some things in FoxPro.


How did you get involved in creating forum systems?

The company I work for, dealnews.com, needed a forum back in 1999. I
was not full time or anything then. We messed around with some of the
perl stuff that was out there but we were not happy. I decided to
mess around with some PHP/MySQL stuff and viola, Phorum was born. I
stuck the code out there for others to help with and inside of a month
we had version 1.0.


What is your main roll as a team member?

Team leader and idea man. Not all ideas mind you. I usually start on
new version solo and get the base in place. The fluff is then added
by an array of people.


What do you enjoy most about Phorum?

I enjoy creating an alternative to the cookie cutter message boards
that are available. Our focus I believe is different than other
projects.


What do you feel the best features of Phorum are?

Speed and our module system. We focus a lot on speed as the two core
developers (myself and Thomas Seifert) run very large forums. The
module system, however, allows site owners to add all the bells and
whistles that one could want.


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

The best forum system is not about the system. The user should think
of all the people, the topics, etc. If the users are distracted by
the software, its not good software. It should be ok for them to be
wowed by it. But, the primary focus of the software should be to ensure
the users can become consumed with the topics and one another.


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

Have a clear idea of what you want your community to be. I have seen
many site owners flounder and add things that were not fully thought
out.


How has Phorum changed over the years?

We have added many of the features that many people come to expect
in a community application. We have either implemented those things
(like private messaging) or gave other developers ways to make modules
to create those features.


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

Phorum has a slightly different focus than the others I believe. We
focus on performance and expandability. We don't try to be everything
out of the box.


How many people are now in the Phorum team?

There are currently 3 people that commit to the source tree. We have
had about 15 over the years.


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

I get asked this a lot. I honestly have not looked at many of the
offerings. There are a couple that claim to be lightweight and fast.
It would likely be one of those. I would consider vBulletin as well.


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

A logical user interface is much more important IMO. I would in fact
say that lots of features could in fact confuse users.


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

Well, that depends on what type of release it is. A couple of years
ago, we came up with clear rules for what constitutes a major, minor or
bug fix release. If its a bug fix release, we do those probably once
per month. If its a minor release, it can take as long as a year. 5.1
has been in development that long.


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

There is clear set that are all in one community applications. I would
expect those to copy a lot of the features you see at popular community
sites. The other set is the ones like Phorum that are just meant to be
a part of the site. Those will continue to provide a good core system
for web site owners to build upon.


What does the future hold for Phorum?

Who knows. We have a list of things for 5.2 already. They are mostly
optimizations and performance enhancements. That is where a lot of our
focus lies. There is also some thoughts in my head of starting another
application with a more community, blogging like focus. Kind of a
hybrid blog/forum application.




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