Best Developers for xenForo

[LPro]

My top 5
1- Bob https://xenaddons.com/
2- Xon https://atelieraphelion.com/
3- Siropu https://www.siropu.com/
4- DragonByte https://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/
5- au lait https://xenmade.com/

 

[mysiteguy]

That flew right over your head I am afraid.

AndyB has criticism on TAZ about code quality.

 

[Alpha1]

Yes, that was the point of the post.

 

[siONtI]

1. Xon for add-ons
2. ThemeHouse for Themes

AndyB has criticism on TAZ about code quality.

Yep can confirm i don't recommend using his add-ons... We were having some sql issues with his Similar threads addon
it performs LIKE searches on the database >.<
rather than using elasticsearch
so it performs 2000+ LIKE requests every time it updates
each take between 5-15 seconds to complete because its super cpu intensive

# Query_time: 11.133257  Lock_time: 0.000115  Rows_sent: 1  Rows_examined: 20225  Rows_affected: 0
# Query_time: 8.986400  Lock_time: 0.000109  Rows_sent: 1000  Rows_examined: 16936  Rows_affected: 0
# Query_time: 6.093930  Lock_time: 0.000020  Rows_sent: 2  Rows_examined: 20227  Rows_affected: 0
# Query_time: 6.667478  Lock_time: 0.000041  Rows_sent: 0  Rows_examined: 20227  Rows_affected: 0
# Query_time: 5.063551  Lock_time: 0.000047  Rows_sent: 0  Rows_examined: 20227  Rows_affected: 0
# Query_time: 5.972271  Lock_time: 0.000029  Rows_sent: 1  Rows_examined: 20227  Rows_affected: 0
# Query_time: 5.533854  Lock_time: 0.000025  Rows_sent: 0  Rows_examined: 20227  Rows_affected: 0

times 2000
the query is coded really badly



from 60-100% while it was updating, to steady 25% cpu usage >.<

 

[leslie]

Key features of my site were dependant on Waindigo's add-ons when Audentio acquired them. This is always a nightmare scenario for someone like me with a small site and no in-house development. Audentio was great working me to either update or help me replace. I've had an onging relationship with the team since then through several crises, and large and small development projects.

I wholeheartedly recommend the whole team.

 

[Alpha1]

Key features of my site were dependant on Waindigo's add-ons

Great & appealing features, but horrible code. Like many others the money I invested was down the drain. Pretty much every addons had to be replaced. I will not easily go anywhere near Waindigo's addons.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

Great & appealing features, but horrible code. Like many others the money I invested was down the drain. Pretty much every addons had to be replaced. I will not easily go anywhere near Waindigo's addons.

Exactly. Going forward the problem now is with him being hired by Themehouse one has to wonder if he's injecting his horrible coding practice into their products? Has his coding practices improved while he was away doing what ever before and while being associated with the Themehouse team???
And worst of all, for those who know his history, we will never know if or what he has injected his horrible coding practice into.

 

[Mike Creuzer]

Great & appealing features, but horrible code. Like many others the money I invested was down the drain. Pretty much every addons had to be replaced. I will not easily go anywhere near Waindigo's addons.

Exactly. Going forward the problem now is with him being hired by Themehouse one has to wonder if he's injecting his horrible coding practice into their products? Has his coding practices improved while he was away doing what ever before and while being associated with the Themehouse team???

Can you guys humor me by sharing your credentials in deducing good code vs bad code, proven by sharing years of experience and rapport with your colleagues? Or is your issue rather with code that was probably meant to do something small but perhaps you personally needed it to do differently? As I hear all the time? Im glad you agree with each other and have nothing better than to make little white lies about something you know very little about "injecting horrible coding practice" what is this? What do you even mean? Examples? He built FREE addons for the public for years? I don't see you going after and scrutinizing every add-on in the marketplace, so why him? Is it personal? Did he hurt your feelings? I need answers to these questions as I'm a hard to please random member of the XenForo admin demographic.

And worst of all, for those who know his history, we will never know if or what he has injected his horrible coding practice into.

What? Do you need a certificate of authenticity? Its statements like these from people that don't know what they are talking about that give not only TAZ a bad name, but being involved in the forum industry in general a place that no one cares to be anymore. If thats what you wanted to do, congrats.

 

[The Sandman]

Its statements like these from people that don't know what they are talking about that give not only TAZ a bad name, but being involved in the forum industry in general a place that no one cares to be anymore. If thats what you wanted to do, congrats.

TAZ is simply a venue for forum admins to discuss forum related things. It reflects what people are either thinking for themselves or what they are being told. If there are things being disseminated through the forum community which are inaccurate or wrong isn't it better for those things to be aired out here rather than being left to fester under the surface?

 

[Mike Creuzer]

TAZ is simply a venue for forum admins to discuss forum related things. It reflects what people are either thinking for themselves or what they are being told. If there are things being disseminated through the forum community which are inaccurate or wrong isn't it better for those things to be aired out here rather than being left to fester under the surface?

Wasn't a jab at you, more the same people I see posting here. I agree with you. Simply airing random attacks is a hobby for some that I see on this site quite frequently.

 

[punchbowl]

have a backbone ffs

 

[Bionic Rooster]

Mike Creuzer A cursory search of xf for 'Waindigo add-ons' by 'Mike Creuzer' brings up several posts regarding the validity of claims by many that they had bad experience with Waindigo coding.
Some code was so bad you guys wouldn't support it or fix it without an additional cost https://xenforo.com/community/threads/th-infusionsoft-api.74100/page-3#post-1131932
My personal experience experience was that when I talked with him about something not working (can't recall specifically which one or what it was that wasn't working as it was so long ago) I do recall the frustration of being told "If you want it fixed you will have to pay for it". Most people I talked to about this back in the day had the same experience and they wondered if this was deliberate to get people to pay.

Its statements like these from people that don't know what they are talking about that give not only TAZ a bad name, but being involved in the forum industry in general a place that no one cares to be anymore.

Fortunately not everyone thinks like you. As Sandman said TAZ is a venue of views and opinions and everyone who posts their personal experience and opinions knows (except you) the difference I guess..

 

[Bionic Rooster]

Can you guys humor me by sharing your credentials in deducing good code vs bad code, proven by sharing years of experience and rapport with your colleagues?

Experience with Waindigo add-ons has been expressed and validated by many so if you provide a certificate of authenticity that would be cool. One doesn't need to be a mechanic to know weather they bought a lemon or not, so I don't see your observation that because someone isn't a coder they have no idea what they are talking about when something they got for free or payed for doesn't work as described.

 

[Alpha1]

Can you guys humor me by sharing your credentials in deducing good code vs bad code

You have already did this yourself. You have taken over hundreds of his addons and have been publicly scrutinized for the issues with it again and again. You have defended yourself by saying that you only took over the addons. And indeed as mentioned above you have marked addons as unmaintened due to code quality. Waindigo himself kindly offered to add warnings to several of his addons.

I know various admins who hired Jon W (Waindigo) to produce addons and were left with unusable software. Most needed to be repaired by other developers or completely rewritten. Crazy-Achmet is one example of an admin who funded several addons. I also funded the development of functions, importers, etc.

This is not an exotic case and as the owner of that code you are completely aware of it. Almost all respectable xf addon developers I have worked with over the years have told me not to use waindigo code. Something I know from first hand experience as some of the addons have terribly slow queries or even bring sites to a grinding halt.

Its completely ridiculous to pretend there is no problem to see here. But I can understand your need to protect an employee. Even when its not rational.

He built FREE addons for the public for years?

He took on a lot of paid custom work and released this for free. Jon always had a full project queue.

I don't see you going after and scrutinizing every add-on in the marketplace, so why him? Is it personal? Did he hurt your feelings?

IMO Waindigo did significant damage to the XF ecosystem due to lost investment in time, effort and money. This caused a lot of frustration to many.
But no, this is not personal: Jon has always been kind and easy to work with. No feelings have been hurt. If he would produce quality code then he would have been a pleasure to work with. In this regard I do feel kinda bad about bringing this up. But the issue is so severe and disruptive that it would not be fair to to others to keep my mouth shut when people mention Waindigo addons being key in a thread about the best developers of XenForo.

I know that you are going to take criticism personally and prefer the offense, like you often do. But I have to say it was very dissapointing to see that ThemeHouse hired Waindigo. Above someone calls it 'scary' and I have heard a similar description from several people in recent months. I think its an accurate description. It negatively affects the reputation of and trust in Themehouse. You have some great people working for ThemeHouse. Especially Jake whom I have great trust in. Mixing in the Waindigo name after all that has happened over the years is worrisome to me.

 

[Alpha1]

What? Do you need a certificate of authenticity?

Letting us know for how long Waindigo has been coding for you and what addons he worked on would help a lot.

 

[sbjsbj]

My two cents.

I wasn't a customer of the ThemeHouse/Audentio guys at all until I grabbed 2 addons the last Black Friday to test those addons (still not installed yet).

I always stayed away from them just because their focus was on themeing and I do believe custom themes are horrible to work with, no matter what company. You have to make them compatible with your addons all the time and using extensively Javascript breaks everything all the time. Not worth the hassle, no matter from which company.

And by acquiring Waindigo's addons they pretty much killed their own reputation because they couldn't support all of the addons.
Now since 2.0 I do believe and see that their support got better and since they acquired Lukas W (katsulynx) I am watching you more closely. I do still think that your focus is towards themes and custom work for your clients, as you barely give any attention to your current addons, but overall I think by acquiring Lukas you did a good move and I do want to say that his quality should be good (not that I could judge it).

Now we also learned from you that Jon W is also working for you now. I am also one of the guys who think that how Jon handled his business was not right. He pretty much charged for everything and I mean everything and he was expensive. You can hire whoever you want but not sure if he was the right guy for the job.

On the other hand I also agree with you Mike Creuzer that specially Alfa is constantly attacking people. He has a business to protect, I understand but this constantly annoying jabs is getting tiresome. I remember the developer scene between 1.0 and 1.3 and see the developer scene now.
Back then you could find for each development related discussion tens of replies, all being involved.
Now all is dead. Most devs left XF, handfull of good ones are there but I hear from some of them how bad the XF marketplace is for customers and developers. It also isn't helpful that people like Alfa complaining constantly.

For me, as I cannot judge code quality, the best developers are those people, who have reasonable prices and who are a part of the community for many years now. You can rely on them and their addons and you don't feeld abandoned after a time.

 

[djbaxter]

Yep can confirm i don't recommend using his add-ons... We were having some sql issues with his Similar threads addon
it performs LIKE searches on the database >.<
rather than using elasticsearch
so it performs 2000+ LIKE requests every time it updates
each take between 5-15 seconds to complete because its super cpu intensive

Actually, AndyB's Similar Threads (for XF2) and Similar Threads Plus ( for XF1.5.x) both have options to use elastic search.

People here do get carried away with trashing other people a lot and they don't seem to mind stretching or distorting the facts to do that.

That is one of the big reasons why every time I come back here it's only a matter of time before I can no longer stomach the BS and need to leave again. It's a shame because there are some good and knowledgeable people here but they get drowned out by the trolls and know-it-alls.

 

[siONtI]

Actually, AndyB's Similar Threads (for XF2) and Similar Threads Plus ( for XF1.5.x) both have options to use elastic search.

That option is useless because it doesn't work.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

That is one of the big reasons why every time I come back here it's only a matter of time before I can no longer stomach the BS and need to leave again. It's a shame because there are some good and knowledgeable people here but they get drowned out by the trolls and know-it-alls.

Speaking of which, self diagnosing again are you? Just because you disagree with someone's opinions or observations doesn't justify yours or others personal attacks. It's a shame you do what you accuse what other do because sometimes you do have useful/informative contributions.

 

[djbaxter]

That option is useless because it doesn't work.

Evidence? Oh yeah..... I forgot for a moment. Trolls don't need evidence, do they? It just messes up the flow of their trolling.