Question Home pc server test enviroments Good or Bad for tesing joomla/kunena ??

here is my take on the matter:


WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP/whatever is "all right" (I suppose) if you want to do things quick-and-dirty but, because you have to spend an impossible amount of time tweaking various settings, adding other bits and pieces (to get e-mail working, for instance), you can't test everything. Even if you use your own PC to conduct feasibility testing (i.e. to see if something is possible) you can never use your PC to test a work's viability (i.e. to establish that the product under test will work in an operational environment).

i have found your better of paying £5/$5 a month for a small testbed shell ( hosted site ) rather than use these type of enviroments.

I am testing Kunena in both (local and live server).

In local server you just have to know about server and how it's work (which all settings you have to configured and so on...)

In live servers (which should be already configurated for settings which providers accept = you can/I hope change php.ini file in each or clobal way yourself) work fine on me...

So it's hard to say which are better way... for the some users local is better way, but there are some many local systems which work "with they basic settings" wrong way or they do not even are up to date...

Just my opinion part 1: local (Home pc server test enviroments) testing needs todays also something more (know-how) that just install and test when you test Joomla! or Kunena.

Just my opinion part 2: do in your live server/*production site sub-domain test site where you move all this test site from local and check how it works there. (change permission first and test it how it work) Remember Security always!

*production sites are recommended when K 1.6 is Stable status. Before that you can only blain yourself.

Thank you, Cerberus, for starting this very interesting discussion topic.

As a general comment, local, PC-hosted, test sites have their purpose but they also have their limitations.

There are many problems that users will not be able to resolve (nor will users always be able to properly appreciate) if they limit their testing to sites they create and host on their own PCs. A quick search of the messages that I have posted previously in this forum illustrates this fairly well.

People who rely upon local PC-served websites in order to establish the viability of Kunena as a forum product for their needs must remember that local PC-served websites merely establish a proof-of-concept. Such test sites do not always answer all of their questions nor can they be totally relied upon if they expect test sites, like those, to prove everything.

There is also a larger danger that, when people write to the forum, asking for help or implying that Kunena software is "defective", they may also unintentionally unsettle the larger body of users who must be asking themselves "With all these reports about how troublesome is Kunena, should I even think about using Kunena at all?"

Let us deal with that question. 99% of the time^*, the versions of Kunena that are available for download from this site work. 99% of the time, Kunena works straight away, right "out of the box", automagically, without you having to do anything. Yes, we acknowledge, that some website owners will have their own problems and their own issues and, in some cases, these problems affect more than one user. Those are the problems that we need to focus our attention upon.

I'm not saying that users should feel that we won't answer their specific questions or that we won't help them with their unique issues but I am saying that we have more difficulty answering questions if users' sites are quarantined or are not accessible to us to be able to look at. This is the problem, for us, with local PC-served test sites. So these two issues (the inaccessibility and the peculiar problems involved with local PC-served test sites) go hand-in-hand with one another. The implications of the widespread use of local PC-served test sites in order to report issues further weakens the uptake of Kunena by those who are considering whether or not it's a good, solid, reliable product. The numerous special difficulties of local PC-served websites, weakens the proposition that the developers put forward, that Kunena is a product that people should be able to use with confidence.

We could list the numerous technical problems in using local PC-served websites: the different PHP issues (and the need to work around them by modifying your php.ini file); the inability to generate email; the difficulties in load testing sites, by having many users logged-in simultaneously. Most, if not all, of these difficulties are resolved because reputable webhosting providers have removed the worry or have taken care of them for you.

Those are the "down sides" of using a local PC-served environment. The PC-served environment does not adequately reflect real, live operational situations.

On the other hand, a local PC-served environment gives people a head start, those who are still experimenting with web design and layout.

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^* I don't know if it's 99% of the time, or 94% of the time, or whatever might be the statistically correct value. I'm only trying to say that nearly every time that users install Kunena on a standard Joomla website, they should not experience any problems. It's when users deviate from the standard platform, or when users change things, that most of the problems occur.

Sorry I don't fully understand this discussion. The development team is using local Joomla installs since day one with great success. There are various options for various systems to test with. For example Zend provides a free download of the Zend Server Community edition. On the Mac there is MAMP and MAMP Pro amongst many others.

A correctly configured local test server should work just as well as a site hosted on any net server.

Done right a local site is much more secure, will most likely be faster and can easily be configured with svn access.

We absolutely encourage the use of local test sistes for testing.

fxstein wrote: Sorry I don't fully understand this discussion. The development team is using local Joomla installs since day one with great success. There are various options for various systems to test with. For example Zend provides a free download of the Zend Server Community edition. On the Mac there is MAMP and MAMP Pro amongst many others.

A correctly configured local test server should work just as well as a site hosted on any net server.

Done right a local site is much more secure, will most likely be faster and can easily be configured with svn access.

We absolutely encourage the use of local test sistes for testing.

yes " A corrrectky confgured local test server " but does everyone know how to do this ?

I think Cerberus has hit the nail on the head: users need to be aware that, in testing their ideas in a PC-served environment, they need to be aware of the way that their webserver software needs to be properly configured: configured in a way that mirrors the real, live environments that their websites will later operate within. The problem is that most users seem to be unaware of the differences between what they use to test and what they will later use when they run their websites.

I agree with fxstein. We do not discourage the use of PC-served environments to asses the feasibility approach. We do, however, encourage users to undertake testing (to establish viability) in an environment that is identical to the way that their sites will ultimate operate within. The difficulty lies in understanding what are the differences between what's feasible and what's viable.

When users report that they have problems within a test environment other users may infer that there are wider implications regarding the confidence about the reliability of Kunena in a broader sense. That, for me, is the essence of what this discussion is about. Does that help clear up the confusion?