[TYPO3-english] Upgrade strategy

[Xavier Perseguers]

Hello David,

> I run a big web site on 4.3.11 that works fine so far and some extensions
> update start requiring 4.4.0 minimum (realurl for instance). I know 4.3 is
> deprecated (but it works as it is!) and I wonder what is best strategy to
> upgrade and avoid breaking everything. I feel that core requirement for
> extension is not always clearly specified and I don't know how to deal with.

It is, many extensions use the dependencies to state with which version 
it is compatible (or at least "tested"). In this very case, I don't 
think Dmitry started to use code only available in 4.4 and above so I'd 
say it *should* still work on 4.3 however I clearly understand him 
removing "official" support from a deprecated version of TYPO3. It's 
fair being so professional and not keeping old versions because it 
worked once but was never tested again.

> In general, is it better to update core before updating extensions (4.4 or
> 4.5?), or can I safely assume that all extensions are supposed to work in
> any latest 4.*? Can I update directly from 4.3 to 4.5?

You should not assume an extension is supposed to work in any latest 4.x 
unless it is specified in the requirements and still, you better make a 
test on some less used website or be prepared to rollback the upgrade. 
And still, if the requirements do not put any upper limit on some 
*stable* version (empty or 0.0.0 for instance), then it probably means 
the author thinks it is "supposed" to work but it does not prove it will 
actually work because s/he may as well have stopped using it him/herself...

> Today, are all main extensions (tt_news, realurl, etc) running fine with
> latest 4.4/4.5? To help upgrading it would be great to have a certification
> for extension (for example this ext is certified for 4.5.X, 4.4.7 etc)

You have to trust extension's author but for such "big" and widely used 
extensions, you have some guarantee that they are working with latest 
version of TYPO3. Moreover, the extensions you mention are leaded by 
Core team members...

HTH

-- 
Xavier Perseguers
Release Manager TYPO3 4.6

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