I had to laugh to myself when I took a look at the Boonex website earlier today. True to form, and as predicted by me many months ago. It would seem that Boonex are preparing to move on from their Dolphin 7 script and replace it with... you guessed it... Dolphin 8.

As predicted, Dolphin 8 will not share functionality with the earlier version rendering all purchased modifications, templates etc useless. Those choosing to update to the new version will be at the mercy of the vendors when it comes to updating and it is likely that many vendors will use this to force users into purchasing products again. This was certainly my experience when I upgraded from Dolphin 6 to Dolphin 7.

Another issue that I faced when I upgraded was that the URL schema was changed between D6 and D7, this was a major headache as it had a huge effect on my sites SEO rankings, and was something that was not fixable. It would not surprise me to find that Boonex will change the URL schema again on the new update.

The dolphin community are anxious with the news of the upgrade, especially those members that have been around long enough to have experienced this before. Amusingly Boonex seem to be using similar excuses about D8 being the next best thing, and so much better than the last best thing. Quite rightfully there is a lot of frustration amongst the older community members.

The same question relating to fixing the existing bugs is also being asked, and the same answer is being given that was given to Dolphin 6 users, namely that D7 will continue to be supported in parallel to D8. Well sorry Boonex. I'm going to have to call B$ on that one. I was one of those frustrated D6 users. Boonex's reply thread's title say's it all... 'Finish What We Started or Move On' I will leave it up to you to decide on what will happen there.

Interestingly, I did a Google for 'Dolphin' to see what the discussions were out in the web community, and still there, in the top search rankings are the words 'Boonex is a Scam!!'. It seems some things will never be forgotten, and the more I look at the way that Boonex operate, the harder it is to ignore such sentiments. Those newer Dolphin users should take heed to some of the bad press that Dolphin gets, there is actually some credence in those words.

Whilst I was poking around the Dolphin site I couldn't help but notice that it bared an uncanny resemblance to the old expertzzz site, it made me wonder if there had been some role changing over at the Boonex camp and they had reinstated someone from a past era. If my memory serves me correct, this would be the same person who was responsible for the bad coding of previous dolphin versions which in turn was one of the big selling points for upgrading to D7.

Ironically the same selling point is being applied to D8 - an improved codebase, with newer features, replacing the old (outdated / bad / in need of repair) codebase of D7. LOL. It seems to me (and I have stated this before) there is a severe lack of project management over at Boonex. The goal posts constantly change, and the code gets changed for no reason other than someone wants to change it. Admittedly, D7 is far from being a great piece of coding, and to be truly competitive needs a complete rewrite, but the way that they fail to manage their business is laughable. That is of course, unless such moves are part of their business strategy.

The lastest post A More Modular Dolphin. Dolphin Studio Screenshot! shows some of the groundbreaking new development thinking that has gone into D8. (LOL) But this itself has already caused some conjecture about whether it is an actual screenshot of the new code in action, or simply a created image. The answer is very telling indeed. The comment made abut D8 that Boonex could possibly a competitive product to Drupal literally made me ROFLMFAO. The biggest change is the same change that Boonex always seem to sell; a change in the base philosophy of how the web works. Well, suffice to say. Whilst Boonex try to reinvent the wheel, the rest of the web will move on at it's normal pace leaving Boonex lagging some paces behind.

Looking back, it's not too far off of a year ago that I made this post about revisiting Boonex two years from the date that I decided I'd had enough with Dolphin, it's bugs, the bad support and the lack of integrity displayed by their developers. And whilst it's pretty amusing that a year down the track it's contents are still holding true. it is of no real surprise to read the posts about D8, and how it's being handled. I still feel sorry for those sucked in by the hype, but there is some hope. Migrate to Joomla. LOL