[Typo3] just a word of praise!

[JoH]

> "keep cool" - I am, although it is quite sunny here. I didn't think
> you were ranting, maybe just raving ;o)
>
> OK, I'll give you the typoScript/api thing... although in this day
> and age it does seem a bit like overkill. I realise that having
> something like typoScript as part of the framework allows Typo3 to be
> much more flexible than the likes of Mambo, PHP Nuke or whatever but
> it's not a great solution. What is the solution? Quite frankly, I
> don't know but the developers need to move away from the 'made by
> developers for developer' model that Typo3 currently is, after all
> why bother using Typo3 at all if you are a developer.
>
> This is really my main grumble about Typo3... it offers nothing that
> a more generic web technology (like for example PHP or .Net) has to
> offer but is more limiting.

Well - it is not ;-)

Your arguments remind me of something my father (who was a programmer in the
early 70s) said once:
"I don't need this Windows crap. If I want a pocket calculator I can write
one ..."

But let me explain why TYPO3 is less limiting as you might have expected ...

Do you know Lego? (Funny thing is, that it is a danish invention too and
it's a good example here ...)
Imagine PHP is something like Lego. You have got lots of pieces with
different sizes, functions and colors.
If you are able to put them together in the right way and if you have the
time to do that you can build almost anything out of this pieces.
You may have noticed there are two "if" in this senctence.
What if you are not able or don't have the time or both? - They will stay
what they are: Lots of pieces.
But what if you still want to play with some lego racers or a whole city
with lots of different areas?
What if there were people outthere that would pay you lots of money for such
a city?
TYPO3 offers you a huge set of prebuilt toys and devices.
With these bigger pieces you will be able to create your own Legoland in a
few hours and it will look professional enough to sell it to the client.
Of course you could build the same thing using the basic pieces. But it
would take much more knowledge and time to do so.

And another good thing about TYPO3 is, that you have different sets of such
prebuilt devices..
For real PHP developers you will find hundreds of predefined functions they
can use in their own extensions without reinventing the wheel each time they
create something new.
A few weeks ago for example I found out that in TYPO3 there is a predefined
pagebrowser function. A thing that took me more than a day to create for a
client.
For people without or with less PHP knowledge (or maybe just lazy guys like
me) there is TypoScript which is kind of shorthand writing of the PHP code
behind it.
I can create very complex things with TypoScript in a few minutes that would
have taken hours or maybe days to create in pure PHP.
This way TYPO3 gives you the ability to use functions created be real
PHP-wizards for your own stuff.
Of course there are still limits. But the major limits which are lack of PHP
knowledge and time are reduced to a minimum.

And this is why I think that TypoScript is really great solution (BTW: Did
you ever try Object oriented TypoScript by Dan Frost?) and I am pretty sure
that TYPO3 is on a much higher level than being a "minority tool". Have a
look at the steadily growing reference lists and you will notice that it is
already used by lots of global players.

Of course it will need some improvements regarding accesibility and usabilty
especially of the backend.
But altogether it's one of the best commercial and/or open source frameworks
that are currently available.

And if you got good ideas for improvements you should try feature requests
on bugs.typo3.org

Joey

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