[TYPO3-ttnews] Switch to news2

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

On 17-9-2011 13:39, Robert Wildling wrote:
> A topic that obviousely is of more people's interest! I'd like to add my
> 2 cents here since I already had some discussion in the past without
> having any impact.

In this world and certainly the TYPO3 world discussing isn't the most 
important way to have any impact. The Nike slogun still applies here: 
"Just do it!".
Before you start about not being a programmer, please read on, I'll 
discuss that later on.

> Am 17.09.11 12:25, schrieb Jigal van Hemert:
>
>>> The people behind TYPO3 are making some big mistakes if you ask me:
>> Since TYPO3 is a community product, "the people behind TYPO3" is also
>> you!
> This discussion is characterized by the very standard arguments coming
> from the core developers. And "The People behing TYPO3 is also you" is
> exactely one of them.

It is maybe a standard argument, but then again it is a reply to the 
standard remark that "they should do this and that".

> Not all people behing TYPO3 are programmers - actually I assume only a
> small percentage is. But it is those people - the users - who make TYPO3
> a wide spread and therefore famous CMS.

And this is where being part of TYPO3 comes in for the non-programmers.
TYPO3 is a community product, which means that the participation in the 
community is needed. Everyone who uses TYPO3 to earn their living does 
not pay a license fee to use it and get support. Support is provided by 
community members; they "pay" by offering their time to do this.
If a user finds a problem it would be a nice thing to file a bug report 
and invest a bit of time to make it easy to reproduce. This way he/she 
contributes to making the product better.
What else can you do if you're not a programmer?
- documentation; a lot of complaints about missing documentation. 
Integrators, power users, etc. can easily write tutorials and such. 
Contact the documentation team to see how you can contribute
- support; help other who ask questions
- test bug reports; it is already a big help for developers if the 
situation to reproduce it becomes clear. Even lots of responses that it 
is needed to fix helps to see which issues have more priority than others
- money/man power; you don't have to be a core team member to make a 
patch. it's enough to have a (free) account at typo3.org; agencies can 
ask one of their developers to make a patch. If you don't employ 
programmers you can hire a core team member or other developer (many 
work freelance or can be hired through the agency they work for)
- design; we need designers for small and big things.
- HTML/CSS; the designs need to work for all supported browser and for 
the never ending flow of new versions of browsers. Improve or fix 
styling issues can be easily done. Contact a developer (or core team 
member) to have him/her make a patch for you
- other talents? If it is something useful, just get into contact with 
someone or ask in a newsgroup. If your catering company wants to supply 
something at an event that would also help!

I personally have no money to spend on the TYPO3 project, but luckily I 
know a bit of PHP. In my spare time I make patches, test patches, write 
extensions, etc. I am not paid to develop the TYPO3 core by anyone; it's 
my way of donating to the project.

> and this is really to be realized! - TYPO3 is a standard CMS that many
> firms, agency etc demand when it comes to gathering offers for their web
> presence. "It has to be TYPO3". (Why not Drupal?)

Yes, I've heard that in for example Germany it's considered "cool" to 
have TYPO3 site. I don't see this in the Netherlands. Most offers are 
for "a CMS" and bids come in for various systems.

> everybody donate to TYPO3 so that the features that are really necessary
> will one day get implemented? I personally won't, because developers do
> their thing and seem to absolutely no be willing to implement the
> features that so many people need who made it famous - and who are now
> depended on TYPO3.

This is not really true. You are somehow still in the "them" and "they" 
mode. It is however often not enough to shout in some mailing list 
"TYPO3 should have this and that".
If there is a somewhat big feature that is needed you can start to 
collect ideas, issues which are filed about it, document things, collect 
people. Which such a proposal you can find developers including a few 
core devs to form a project for this.
It doesn't take a programmer to organize this...

> Is is nothing else but the truth that every other major CMS has a news
> module.

I am not much into other 'major' CMSs, but I know that a number of them 
have a company behind them which also offers paid support and licenses. 
This changes the situation a bit. Paying customers will then be a 
directly driving force for new development.
In the TYPO3 project it is a bit the same. New projects are almost 
always started because someone (or a company) finds it worth investing 
in. It can be an agency a developer works for which donates his/her 
time, it could be sponsoring or a freelance developer who decides to 
donate his/her time (or mostly a combination of them).

 > The - again - often read "excuse" that "the core team does not
> have the man power" ... is lame and boring.

With all due respect to all 'users' of TYPO3. The complaint that "they 
should build this or that" is just as "lame and boring". Most of the 
time it comes from people who do very little for the community because 
"they are not a programmer".

 > Why do you have the man power for a workspace module? Or a link
 > validator? [...]

See above.

> This is what I dare to say - please proof me wrong:
>
> - A news system is needed by way more people than a workspace / link
> validator and other stuff

There are news systems available as extensions in TER. What's wrong with 
using them? The core doesn't come with a templating / mapping system, 
use automaketemplate, templavoilà, etc.! The core doesn't come with a 
system to handle files and meta data, use DAM. That's what extensions 
are for.

> - A news system actually WAS ORIGINALLY SHIPPED with TYPO3 when Kaspar
> brought it to the market. It was maybe not very rich of features as was
> tt_news, but actually I do not understand why that respective news
> module wasn't developed any further. Please explain, core team.

That was before there was proper support for external extensions. See 
the common thing between tt_content, tt_news, tt_board, etc.? tt_content 
is absolutely necessary and part of the core, others are move to 
external extensions once that was supported by the core.
Kaspar also started automaketemplate and templavoila (and many other 
extensions). He didn't include them in the core, but put them as 
optional extensions in the TER.

I wonder why you want to have everything in the core? There is no 
guarantee that it will be developed the way you want. Extensions can be 
updated easily outside the development cycle of the core. This means 
that bugs can be fixed quicker.

If an extension isn't developed further someone can take over 
development or start an alternative. Easy and flexible.

> Well - make news a core EXT again! It is just about time I'd say!

1. Why? (see above)
2. Who will reserve time to support it? Will you hire someone for that?
3. Why?

> The problem with all that discussion here is that we as users won't have
> any chance either way, because the core team cooks its own soup - a vey
> good soup, but not one for every day hunger. The users can bring in one
> argument after the other, the other CMSs can evolve further and further
> - TYPO3 just won't jump on the train.

1. Not true (see earlier)
2. Where have been living for the past years? Part of the core devs are 
developing TYPO3 version 5 based on a whole new framework (FLOW3). That 
won't be evolution, but a far greater step forward.

> Meanwhile, actually, I think it is too late to incorporate a news
> feature into the core.TYPO3 became too complex and - talking about
> tt_news spaghetti code - how well is TYPO3 core code, if it is sooo
> difficult and / or time consuming to implement a news feature?

It isn't difficult to incorporate it. A system extension is almost the 
same as a third party extension. It's just that it requires maintenance 
after it has been developed. It means that less time can be spend on 
other parts of the core.

The TYPO3 core code is mixed quality when it comes to coding style. 
That's a part of the efforts of the core team to refactor parts to make 
it possible to make unit tests for the code. This way future changes can 
more easily tested for changes in existing functionality.

The workspaces/versioning extensions you talked about are an example of 
this. The functionality existed inside the core. You couldn't disable it 
(but only not use it) because some of the code in the core handled 
workspaces and versioning. If you didn't need or use it the code (and 
queries) were still executed.
The workspaces project managed to remove that code from the actual core 
and put it in system extensions. The modules and preview were also 
rewritten to improve the functionality.

You have read about the "BLE" project. Parts of the project will make 
the TYPO3 core conform to accessibility guidelines, make file management 
and digital asset management better, etc. This wasn't started by the 
core, but by a German government agency; a TYPO3 user.

> Putting all the weight on Rupi who did a great job with tt_news does
 > not seem fair to me at all!!!

Who did that? Did you help him? Did you use tt_news without supporting 
Rupi? ...

It's easy to complain about things and say that "they should" do this, 
"they should" rethink something. Think about what *you* can do to 
improve TYPO3 and how *you* are going achieve this. You'll be amazed 
what can be achieved and how much fun it can be. Way more satisfying 
than shouting and complaining...

-- 
Kind regards / met vriendelijke groet,

Jigal van Hemert.