Update the technical requirements documentation Topic is solved

[sozzled]

Would someone please update the technical requirements documentation to take into account (a) the changes that have taken place with the releases of PHP (among other things), and (b) the requirements for J! 4.0.

Note: J! 4 is still unsupported and information about this version should be placed after J! 3.x (but before "Requirements for Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, & 2.5") with a note to say that J! 4 is not currently supported.

I would make these changes myself except that the article is not located in docs.joomla.org and, therefore, I have no access to edit articles located in download.joomla.org.

The technical information is available but the latest information about J! 4 is outdated. It would be nice to collect the information in one place and save searching in several places.

Thanks.

[pe7er]

(a) the changes that have taken place with the releases of PHP (among other things)

Because of backwards compatibility Joomla 3.x still has to support PHP 5.3.10.
And PHP 7.3 is still supported (for now )

(b) the requirements for J! 4.0.

Good point! However Joomla 4 is still in Beta and not mean for production.
Therefore it's not listed in that document yet.
When Joomla 4.0.0 stable is released, the document needs to be updated.

[sozzled]

I did not ask about changing the technical requirement for J! 3, specifically. And let's get serious: we all know that J! 3.9.22 will not run on PHP 5.3.10. Have you tested J! 3.9.22 on PHP 5.3.10? Has anyone tested J! 3.x on PHP 5.3.10? Please don't give me that "backward compatibility support" line.

Anyway, I don't really care about changing the technical requirements document for J! 3. We all know it's only a rough guide. The technical requirements document is not the bible; it's a planning document. The technical requirements don't guarantee that if people meet the minimum requirements they can build a J! website but, knowing what the minimum requirements are can prepare people for what they may need to do in order to build a J! website. For some people, these technical requirements may not be possible to meet within the policy parameters of their business or their budget. It's important to know what those expectations are, ahead of time, to allow people to review whether those restrictions would prevent them from trying to build a website with Joomla!

I do, however, care about adding information about the technical requirements for J! 4. And, no, not when J! 4.0 stable is released. I think we need this information now.

For example, we know that J! 4 will not run with all browsers, all webserver software, all database software, all PHP versions. We know that. What we don't know, however, is how approximately accurate is the last information about J! 4 techical requirements which was published over a year ago. A lot of things have changed in a year, haven't they?

So how about someone shows this forum topic to someone who can make a difference and let's see something happen, eh? If we wait until J! 4 stable is released, we could be having this discussion in a year from now!

[pe7er]

I'm sorry that my answer was not the answer that you wanted.

[sozzled]

I'm sorry that there's a mass exodus of people from Joomla because we are unable to plan for what's around the corner, too. It's very difficult to obtain reliable information about J! 4 and, when that information is known to a select few people, it's jealously guarded from everyone else, like it's the Crown Jewels or something. As I wrote before, if I could update this information then I would.

Why is it so difficult to get any action at *.joomla.org websites? Why is this information not part of docs.joomla.org? Do we have to wait another six months for a meeting, or something? You've lost my vote of confidence.

Not just "not happy" ... quite disappointed. No further reason for me to continue testing J! 4 if this is the attitude.

[pe7er]

Why are you so passive aggressive towards me? Your attitude is counterproductive and demotivates volunteers

Again, I am sorry that I cannot help you out with this.

Even if I would have agreed with you to add the requirements for Joomla 4 Beta to the list of requirements, I don't have access to change that page https://downloads.joomla.org/technical-requirements

Maybe you could create an issue at https://github.com/joomla/joomla-websites

[infograf768]

Cool, sozzled, please.
I have transmitted this topic to Maintainers and Tobias should take care of it as soon as he has some time.
That does not prevent you from testing J4 and posting the results of your tests on github.

[sozzled]

I am going to write my own technical requirements document covering all supported, end-of-life and in-development versions of J! and publish it elsewhere. If I get things wrong that's only because I will be relying on my own understanding of things. The people who write tech. doco for J! can disagree as they wish.

I'm not trying to have an argument here; I'm only trying to help other users of J! and promote the project as best as I can. People need this kind of information upon which to make their plans. J! is open source and exists because of the help that volunteers contribute to it. Therefore I will contribute what I can and where I can to the project (as my time and skill permit). I'm disappointed that the same commitment is not shared by a few others who have better understanding and skills in this area. That's just the way I see things.

I'm disappointed that writing documentation is always left as one of the last things to be done instead of writing doco during the development phase. It's this lack of [reasonably] accurate doco that's holding people back from using J!.

It would be simpler, instead of protesting that doco will be made available at some unspecified future time, to write tech. notes now. That's all I'm saying. That's not being passively aggressive; that's stating a common complaint about the inadequacy of up-to-date information to assist people preparing their plans.

[N6REJ]

@sozzled I think your negativity is totally unwarranted. Perhaps you should do some testing before you make blanket statements of fact.
Fact is I just tested 3.9.22 and it does infact work with php 5.3.13. I couldn't test with exactly 5.3.10 as it simply isn't easily available anymore but 5.3.13 is close enough.

systeminfo-2020-10-08T19_34_01+00_00.txt

[sozzled]

I think that people characterising my observations about the lack of technical information as being negative are misconstrued. I am not being "negative", passively agressive or argumentative that some people have inferred, perhaps; I'm trying to offer help as best as I can. The initial response to my request for this information was met with this reply:

... Joomla 4 is still in Beta and not ... for production. Therefore [when] Joomla 4.0.0 stable is released, the document needs to be updated.

As I wrote in beginning of this discussion,

I would make these changes myself except that the article is not located in docs.joomla.org and, therefore, I have no access to edit articles located in download.joomla.org.

I am happy to help but I can't because I don't have the means to contribute changes to that document.

I say that we need this kind of information before J! 4 is released for production purposes even if that information is subject to change in future. If anyone is arguing about that it's not me; it's the people who have access to the article https://downloads.joomla.org/technical-requirements —that I don't have access to (and that others also don't have access to—who are either unaware of the need to maintain that information or unaware of people's need to plan ahead. That's all I'm saying.

Further, just having one person writing technical documentation is unfair on that person and places an unfair expectation on that person getting it done right and in a timely fashion.

[zero24]

Hi,

i have just read the complete thread and try to answear the questions raised here.

Would someone please update the technical requirements documentation to take into account (a) the changes that have taken place with the releases of PHP (among other things), and (b) the requirements for J! 4.0.

The information on downloads.joomla.org are the published technical requirements for stable releases. Right now we are in beta with 4.x and that is the simple reason it is not added there right now. Also right now you can not download any 4.x release from downloads.joomla.org.

Note: J! 4 is still unsupported and information about this version should be placed after J! 3.x (but before "Requirements for Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, & 2.5") with a note to say that J! 4 is not currently supported.

Yes as mention above there is no stable version of 4.x yet nor is there a download via downloads.joomla.org possible. That is the case for the old releases.

I would make these changes myself except that the article is not located in docs.joomla.org and, therefore, I have no access to edit articles located in download.joomla.org.

Yes that page is a CMS page changed manually. When you find a issue please open an report against the joomla-websites repo on GitHub (as mention in the footer of all sites) so the maintainer of the sites can take a look into the requested changes.

The technical information is available but the latest information about J! 4 is outdated. It would be nice to collect the information in one place and save searching in several places.

What kind of technical information do you mean? The latest requirements are:
Documented here: https://developer.joomla.org/news/788-j ... -move.html
Implemented in a postinstall message in 3.x: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/bl ... checks.php
Also fixed in a department motion (PROD2020/025) here: https://volunteers.joomla.org/departmen ... y-5th-2020

Thanks.

Thanks

I'm sorry that there's a mass exodus of people from Joomla because we are unable to plan for what's around the corner, too. It's very difficult to obtain reliable information about J! 4 and, when that information is known to a select few people, it's jealously guarded from everyone else, like it's the Crown Jewels or something. As I wrote before, if I could update this information then I would.

As mention above all information is public even in the backend you get an message once your hosting is not ready.
I agree that there is no final reasease date yet but I can ashure you that is not something we would hold back once we have an idea.

Why is it so difficult to get any action at *.joomla.org websites? Why is this information not part of docs.joomla.org? Do we have to wait another six months for a meeting, or something? You've lost my vote of confidence.

As mention on downloads we have it listed once it is stable. Feel free to add the informations as mention here to a dedicated docs page.

Not just "not happy" ... quite disappointed. No further reason for me to continue testing J! 4 if this is the attitude.

That is sad to hear. I hope I could clear things up an bit and get you back to the testing table.

I am going to write my own technical requirements document covering all supported, end-of-life and in-development versions of J! and publish it elsewhere. If I get things wrong that's only because I will be relying on my own understanding of things. The people who write tech. doco for J! can disagree as they wish.

You can rely on the infos from above so that should be solved. As mention feel free to create a docs page for 4.x too.

I'm not trying to have an argument here; I'm only trying to help other users of J! and promote the project as best as I can. People need this kind of information upon which to make their plans. J! is open source and exists because of the help that volunteers contribute to it. Therefore I will contribute what I can and where I can to the project (as my time and skill permit). I'm disappointed that the same commitment is not shared by a few others who have better understanding and skills in this area. That's just the way I see things.

Yes we do too that is the reason we implemented the postinstall message and published blog posts.

I'm disappointed that writing documentation is always left as one of the last things to be done instead of writing doco during the development phase. It's this lack of [reasonably] accurate doco that's holding people back from using J!.

Yes and no. Documentation is hard and what should we do with the limited developer time we have? Fix the bugs and get 4.x in a state where we can release it or wait with the release of 4.x once all is documented?
I think we are making progress in the docs part but can always improve for sure. Help is always great.

It would be simpler, instead of protesting that doco will be made available at some unspecified future time, to write tech. notes now. That's all I'm saying. That's not being passively aggressive; that's stating a common complaint about the inadequacy of up-to-date information to assist people preparing their plans.

As mention the infos are there feel free to do the docs when you have the time to do it. Would be a great thing

I think that people characterising my observations about the lack of technical information as being negative are misconstrued. I am not being "negative", passively agressive or argumentative that some people have inferred, perhaps; I'm trying to offer help as best as I can. The initial response to my request for this information was met with this reply:

... Joomla 4 is still in Beta and not ... for production. Therefore [when] Joomla 4.0.0 stable is released, the document needs to be updated.

Yes.

As I wrote in beginning of this discussion,

I would make these changes myself except that the article is not located in docs.joomla.org and, therefore, I have no access to edit articles located in download.joomla.org.

I am happy to help but I can't because I don't have the means to contribute changes to that document.

As mention above please create a page and document the requirements for pre releases.

I say that we need this kind of information before J! 4 is released for production purposes even if that information is subject to change in future. If anyone is arguing about that it's not me; it's the people who have access to the article https://downloads.joomla.org/technical-requirements —that I don't have access to (and that others also don't have access to—who are either unaware of the need to maintain that information or unaware of people's need to plan ahead. That's all I'm saying.

Yes and that info is there as mention above and access to that site & page is limited to specific people for obvious reasons, right?

Further, just having one person writing technical documentation is unfair on that person and places an unfair expectation on that person getting it done right and in a timely fashion.

It is not one one person but everyone to extend the docs on docs.joomla.org as mention the downloads page will be updated at the latest at the time of the release.

@sozzled I hope that answered the questions you raised.

[sozzled]

Yes, thanks, it answers the questions. Basically you're saying that there's only one way that people can volunteer their help and my ideas are not welcome among the select group of volunteers who run the place. That's a shame. But to save everyone's time I will mark this topic as resolved.

Let me tell you a story ...

Back in 2011, while J! 3.0 was still in development, I was running a few J! 1.5 websites and one or two J! 1.6 sites. I looked at the technical requirements for J! 3.0 (even though J! 3.0 had not been released) and I asked my webhosting provider when they were planning to use PHP 5.4, (because I wanted to be sure that my future websites would not fall over with the first light breeze). To cut a long story short, a few hundred dollars later, I changed my webhosting provider because my previous webhost said something about "next year ... maybe ...".

You see, because I was making plans six months ahead of time and knowing that my webhosting provider wasn't going to provide me with the tools I needed, I had to change my ways.

For some people thinking about J! 4 (as if they're hoping it will be released later this year), some people will not be able to migrate to J! 4 without making plans. Webhosting providers may also have to make plans, too. But, because the technical information we need is outdated or not easily available, the J! technical writers are making things quite difficult for us. Anyway, I got the answer I expected. Basically I've been told "Off you go, sozzled, and do your own thing and leave us alone to do things at a time of our choosing and not one moment sooner." Fair enough.

When the technical requirements information for J! 4 is updated then I will resume my testing ... and not one moment sooner.

[zero24]

Yes, thanks, it answers the questions. Basically you're saying that there's only one way that people can volunteer their help and my ideas are not welcome among the select group of volunteers who run the place. That's a shame. But to save everyone's time I will mark this topic as resolved.

I strongly disagree with that assestment please take a look again what i wrote. The only thing I tried to explain is why the info has not been added to downloads.joomla.org yet. All other help, like helping with docs or raising points that should be documented or helping on testing is very welcomed at at no time anyone is blocking anyone here.

Let me tell you a story ...

Back in 2011, while J! 3.0 was still in development, I was running a few J! 1.5 websites and one or two J! 1.6 sites. I looked at the technical requirements for J! 3.0 (even though J! 3.0 had not been released) and I asked my webhosting provider when they were planning to use PHP 5.4, (because I wanted to be sure that my future websites would not fall over with the first light breeze). To cut a long story short, a few hundred dollars later, I changed my webhosting provider because my previous webhost said something about "next year ... maybe ...".

You see, because I was making plans six months ahead of time and knowing that my webhosting provider wasn't going to provide me with the tools I needed, I had to change my ways.

Yes this was exactly the plan with the postinstall message implemented in Joomla 3.x as mention above. So none has to go to any page but see's a notice about "your host is not compatible with 4.x" directly in the backend.

Also a google search already points you to the blogposts published (I'm not sure how to place the attachment inline but i have attached a screenshot)

For some people thinking about J! 4 (as if they're hoping it will be released later this year), some people will not be able to migrate to J! 4 without making plans. Webhosting providers may also have to make plans, too. But, because the technical information we need is outdated or not easily available, the J! technical writers are making things quite difficult for us. Anyway, I got the answer I expected.

Well as mention above the info is there as blogposts, motions and as postinstall. Yes right now there might not be a docs page for that but feel free to add one with the info aviable.

Basically I've been told "Off you go, sozzled, and do your own thing and leave us alone to do things at a time of our choosing and not one moment sooner." Fair enough.

That is not what i have said, and i'm disapointed that my reply is interpreted that way. I have tried to explain the reasoning and also pointed you to the joomla-websites repo where you can post any suggestions where even the maintainer of that page could overrule me.

When the technical requirements information for J! 4 is updated then I will resume my testing ... and not one moment sooner.

As mention a few times now there is no update on the aviable information planed yet. With the production motion they are fixed for 4.0. So when you think a docs page helps feel free to create one.

And I'm sad to hear that you wont want to test, but please understand that by the time we release 4.x we can not time travel and fix issues not reported before the release. We need your all feedback on 4.x now.

Thanks!