[TYPO3-dev] Moving the topic of the discussion a little bit -- Based of thread "Change roadmap..."

[Dimitri Tarassenko]

Michael,

On 4/11/06, Michael Scharkow <mscharkow at gmx.net> wrote:

> I agree that TCA should be the one and only source for any model
> definitions (whatever format TCA itself is is, please not XML!), we
> should never ever bother with SQL or anything like this again.

And why the heck not XML?

The biggest advantage of XML here is a formal DTD. I would REALLY
prefer having a formal DTD for configuration/metadata structures like
TCA than a wonderful experience of digging the information piece by
piece from TSRef/Core API Docs again.

DTD is the reason why XML is good as configuration language. If you
know of any alternatives to XML that provide nesting, formal
validation/metadata and an easy way to export/import it to data
structures,  I'd be VERY interested, actually.

Our documentation sucks, and chances are it will continue to be this
way. The only way out is using technologies that enforce
self-documenting in a way that would ease the learning curve for new
developers. And it just so happens that a lot more people had actually
used XML/DTD than something like TypoScript/TCA structures.

--
Dimitri Tarassenko