[TYPO3-dev] RFC - Remove DBAL in total

[Michael Greiner]

Hello,

I've read all your posts on this issue and have a long and short answer to this. For those who have just a minute, scroll down:

First I agree with Mattes who wrote:

"Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike DBAL in general, but I think it is bad practice to ship an extension as part of the core that does not 

work. ... If DBAL is such a killer feature... why doesn't it work?"

Dimitry comes also to the point to keep dbal but for a reason
that didn't seem strong enough for some of us. He wrote:

"It should be fixed, not removed. Lots of people use TYPO3 with other databases. We keep DBAL."

In my opinion the main argument for or against dbal in the core has nothing to do with the number of people using it. I propose a more sophisticated approach. As Typo3 is free software, let it also be free no matter which system people want or have to use. To do so it is absolutely crucial to come up with a stable DB abstraction.

Ries wrote: "It does work properly..." - Ries, what do you mean? We discussed it here how difficult it is, to get a whole system (with a little more than only the core) run on something else than MySQL.

Mattes is absolutely right when he says:

"Again and again releases are shipped that simply do not work because we have no QA that tests even PostgreSQL." - I'm completely with you. This makes Typo3 a bad choice for any developer no matter how good Typo3 is. Here we have to talk about reliability. Many people don't dare to upgrade ANYTHING, because they know nothing will work anymore for weeks and months. I hope you you can share this experience.

"Because core developers are not paid to implement features or fix bugs. They fix whatever they want to fix... Free work means free choice for the developers" says Dimitry but WHO tells the world WHAT the developers want? It seems like they do not know themselves.

Mathias sees the following options: "Either fix those conceptional bugs, write a workaround or remove the extension from the core." And he is sure:  "I don't tell the core devs how to do their job, I just think that it harms TYPO3 if bugs labeled blocker or crash are not fixed prior to a new release (even more if patches exist)." - which I think is absolutely right.


IN SHORT:

In my opinion the main argument for or against dbal in the core has nothing to do with the number of people using it.

I propose a more sophisticated approach. As Typo3 is free software,
let it also be free no matter which system people want or have
to use. To do so it is absolutely crucial to come up with a stable
DB abstraction.

Two things do much harm to Typo3: New releases that are not working because they are not fully tested and bad communication about what the developers want. I don't want to tell any developer what he (or she) should do, instead I want the developers to make clear to the whole community what exactly they want. This includes a statement on DB abstraction now and in future that is accepted by many development teams, also the 5.0 team. This whole issue is far to important to be solved just within a cluster.


Michael
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