[Typo3-dev] osCommerce extension "project"

[Gabriel Anast]

Daniel--

>The next steps:
>Write up a project description pointing out the benefits, the necessary
>steps, the workload and what you need to get it done.
>
>Then we'll discuss it and put it on it's own project page.
>If you have your team together, I can create that in the respective section
>of the teams &projects page. I need your usernames mailed to me in private
>for that.
>  
>
Very well. Thanks for your reply. We will put together a tentative 
project description, and get you the team members as they stand now.

Masi--

>I'd say yes if you find programmers within the osCommerce team that will provide some kind of a (stable!) API.
>
I'm not sure that will happen. The osCommerce API is rudimentary at 
best... and not what I would call an API. We will have to use Typo3 for 
any kind of API, and initially will probably not use one at all as we 
will run osCommerce "native" in a wrapper. However, we hope that this 
project will open a dialog with osCommerce developers that may allow us 
to move in that direction.

>I guess you'll want to use Typo3 for FE rendering. At least that's that I would want to. Doesn't make sense if osCommerce has business logic in it's display code.
>
You are correct there, and osCommerce *does* have business logic in its 
display code. It is completely meshed, however, it is uniform! In other 
words, even though there is almost no data/layout abstraction, once you 
get a feel for osCommerce code you can methodically separate it out for 
the most part. Its not ideal, but its better than a lot of code I have seen.

>From what I've heard it's a sucker to adapt, because it doesn't use (any kind of) template system. I've seen myself the bill generating code. A mess of HTML entangled with PHP. But I don't know how old this particular version was.
>  
>
Fortunately there are two templating systems that are germinal but a 
good starting point nevertheless. The better one (IMO) is called the 
"Basic Template System" and will probably be the basis for feeding our 
first version to Typo3 rendering using Typo3 markers or maybe the auto 
templating tool based on a sanitized osCommerce template (speaking off 
the top of my head here).

>So I think it just isn't worth the hassle if you'd have to rewrite/rehack large parts of your glue code whenever a new osCommerce version is out.
>
In our first attempt we will rehack as little as possible. Once we have 
a version that will nicely display in a Typo3 website, I believe that we 
will go back and attempt a more fundamental reworking. At this point we 
will have to share development standards with the osCommerce team. Even 
if we had to rewrite every piece of the core, thus obviating any real 
synchronicity with osCommerce updates, there are still a lot of 
"contribution" writers out there that would love a real API. Finally, 
there are always more ready hands than you can imagine in the osCommerce 
community... its almost unbelievable how aggressive the community as a 
whole is. If I don't have an idea that will work (more likely than not) 
there will be someone else who will dream something up.