November 20-21 is the release date. There will be some downtime, but it will be worth it!

Full details can be found at http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=76723.

Getting closer and closer! This is all that's left to do before the new 6GC is ready! Another week or two and it should be done!

The rewrite of 6GC is going well! A lot of the hard parts are done, and while there's still a ton to do, the rewrite is going very well. I just got all of the comment stuff working, with some improvements, like replies to comments:

Stay tuned! It shouldn't be too much longer until the new 6GC is done!

I'm rewriting most of 6GC in Ruby on Rails. The forums will stay the same, but the entire rest of the site is being rewritten. The moderating team is onboard with this idea and I figured I'd share with everyone.

Why?

The current site is painful to work on. Really painful. Rails will ease the pain greatly and make it a joy to build new stuff for the site. Building new features in Rails will be at least three times faster than building equivalent features in the current codebase.

Additionally, much of the well-tested and stable code that powers Pedal Room can be re-used here, and vice versa. As I build new features for 6GC or Pedal Room, they can be easily ported to the other site. Even server configurations can be shared.

Finally, there will be various other improvements. A fast chat room, improved speed everywhere (new web server software), new features, etc.

When?

I'm not gonna lie - this is not easy, nor quick. But I will finish this. I'm not gonna disappear and leave everyone hanging. I expect the rewrite to take at least another month. I've already started and at this point the following is done: registration, some forum integration, login/logout, and about half of the chat room.

As I get closer to finishing, I'll post more about what new features you guys can expect. I'll be posting along the way with progress as well. Stay tuned!

I started writing some automated tests for the site today. What's an automated test you say? Basically, it makes the code that powers the site more reliable and bug-free.

Automated tests are written as I write new features, and they are run often (at least every time I release new code to the live site) to ensure that what I'm building is working as expected and that my changes don't break old code. Automated tests have saved my ass time and time again on other projects (Pedal Room has a test suite that has over 900 tests), and I'm incredibly happy to be writing them for 6GC going forward.

Over the weekend I completed the setup of the new server configuration that will run 6GC in the future. It runs not only PHP (which the site is built in), but also several other languages, which allow me to build new things, like a fast and stable chat feature for the site.

Stay tuned for more exciting news. Hopefully I'll have more cool things to share this week.

Malpaso is our new featured ride! It's about time we had a new one! Don't miss his profile and the interview!

P.S. Sorry for not updating the feature for so long! It won't happen again - the moderators now have a tool to pick new featured rides. And we're making more progress on other fronts as well! More news coming soon.

I'm going to keep a blog for 6G Celicas as the site evolves and gets worked on. Yesterday I worked on the site a bit. Today is more of the same, and some planning for the fuure.

Random photo I dug up: