[TYPO3-english] TYPO3 Core API

[François Suter]

Hi Dmitry,

> Philipp Gampe wrote:
>> Choice. TCA reference has been extracted and published as an own manual.
>> Credits go to Francois Suter who did all this work:
>> http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/doc_core_tca/current/
>
> I am curious why this was done? Nothing against it but it would be
> interesting to know reasons for the change.

The first reason was the sheer size of Core APIs: with the updates for 
4.3 it had gone over 200 pages, which was unwieldy both for users (I 
think) and maintainers (I know ;-) ). As the reference to the TCA could 
stand on its own and it represented about half of Core APIs, I figured 
it could very well be a manual of its own.

It also made sense in that this part is a real reference, much like the 
TSref, whereas Core APIs is a kind of melting pot about TYPO3 APIs, 
programming advice and other "sub-systems" (like how to use the system 
registry, etc.). And the TCA reference "gained" one level of table of 
contents (by not being just a chapter), which makes for a more 
accessible TOC.

Last but not least, the TCA reference is a relatively straightforward 
manual to maintain: add new features for a new TYPO3 release, adapt 
description for changed features. On the contrary, Core APIs is tougher 
to maintain, because it very often requires more details (for example, 
the new caching framework is (or will be) a whole chapter). So the the 
hope is that we (the Documentation Team) can react faster with this 
reference and not have it blocked by the rest of the Core APIs. which 
was definitely the case since the last update (for 4.3).

Cheers

-- 

Francois Suter
Cobweb Development Sarl - http://www.cobweb.ch