[TYPO3-dev] Getting rid of deprecated TypoScript stuff in TYPO3

[Dan Osipov]

Imagine how many extensions will stop working, and ordinary 
administrators would not be able to see why...

I'm for b) - I know its a lot of work. Or maybe marking extensions as 
depreciated if they haven't been updated to use the latest TypoScript - 
this would require some form of user reporting in TER.

Dan Osipov
Calkins Media
http://danosipov.com/blog/

Oliver Hader wrote:
> Hi TYPO3 developers!
> 
> In the course of time many things in TYPO3 have been improved, changed,
> updated, deleted and whatever. The reason for this message is that we
> have a lot of deprecated stuff inside TYPO3 that once was "state of the
> art" but is kind of elderly nowadays. And with all these updates and
> improvements we collected some skeletons in the closet...
> 
> Several months/years ago we agreed on marking code in the TYPO3 Core
> with the PHPDoc tag "@deprecated" and will remove the class or method
> two minor releases later. This means a functionality marked as
> deprecated in TYPO3 4.1 will be removed in TYPO3 4.3.
> 
> However, there are many more thing that were marked to be obsolete one
> day but never have been cleaned up. By way of example if you search the
> TypoScript reference (TSref) for the keyword "deprecated" you'll find a
> lot of stuff...
> 
> So what now?
> 
> 1) For PHP API functionalities it's easy... we can now remove the old
> stuff that was declared as deprecated in TYPO3 4.1 and any earlier
> release. If something breaks in extensions - since developers were not
> able to update extensions withing two years - a PHP warning or error
> will point this out. I must admit that this is not the smooth way, but
> you'll exactly know what's wrong...
> 
> 2) For TypoScript stuff this is a bit different. All deprecated stuff
> still works and even if we remove these properties your website will
> still work... but probably it behaves a bit different. And then you
> might start to search what has been changed. Remember, there is no PHP
> warning or error pointing out what is wrong.
> 
> There are three possibilities how to handle this:
> a) Integrate checks for the out-dated stuff and blow up the whole source
> code a bit more. When old stuff is found, a warning appears in some kind
> of log file (sysLog or whatever).
> b) Integrate a very complex update wizard in the install tool that
> parses all TypoScript and configuration issues that are out-dated and
> inform the administrator directly in the user interface.
> c) Rely on the fact that it was stated in the documentation that
> properties are "deprecated" and should not have been used any longer -
> and... just remove the old stuff, save many checks during the processing
> and speed up the whole rendering process.
> 
> Personally I'm in for "c)" but wanted to know about your opinion on that.
> 
> Well! Here we go!
> 
> olly