[TYPO3-v4] Highlight extbase extensions

[Dmitry Dulepov]

Hi!

Michael Stucki wrote:
> Indeed there will be great advantages for developers! It's a shame that
> nobody has yet published a migration howto, but in fact it should be a very
> simple task to migrate such a plugin code-wise. I look forward to that
> proof...
> 
> For the integrators, it will be equally simple as the data scheme will stay
> the same, so all data can be reused.

I do not think 'pid' field will exist... So it must be slightly different.
But it is not a major problem I think.

>> In my opinion Extbase is good to use for those, who plan to work with TYPO3
>> v5 in future. These people may learn and practice concepts. But telling all
>> others "Guys, you suck because you do not want to use Extbase" is offensive
>> and unfair. Highlighting only one kind of extensions i like pointing the
>> finger to others and saying "You are obsolete".
> 
> Well I did not use Extbase so far, but I see the sense behind it. Who said
> you would suck? ;-)

Well, those, who use unofficial or old approaches, they... Well, they suck
by definition (including me) :D

> But hey, isn't this whole proposal about a simple and great encouragement?
> Do you mind about encouraging use of Extbase, or do you fear that others
> will be discouraged by this?

I think it should be done differently. I thought of that since I wrote my
past post and here is what I came with.

We have several devs, who like Extbase, say it is very easy to develop with
it and it is cool. That's it. This is all what they say.

Now imagine other devs. They use pibase or lib/div or their own solution.
They have a choice: invest time to learning Extbase using very poor
documentation or continue their own development way. On one hand "Extbase
is the future", "easy to develop" and "cool". On the other hand: "easy" is
relative for everybody, "cool" is subjective and "future" has a tendency to
change. So it is 50:50 for and against learning Extbase. If you are a
freelancer, you can risk investing time and either win or loose, right? If
you are a company, you can loose more with unclear perspectives of winning.

What Extbase really needs for wider adoption is a good advertisement
campaign. We have lots of devs who are know to create wonderful and widely
used extensions. Take Georg, for example. He is very enthusiastic about
Extbase recently but... That's it.

Now imagine if Georg (or some other dev) created a rgsmoothgallery-like
extension with Extbase and wrote an article about it on typo3.org showing
how to do it starting from the kickstarter. That would be very interesting.
People need much less time to read that than to try themselves. They will
read and see if it is easy and if workflow suits them. 3-5 articles of such
kind should be enough to convince *and teach* lots of people how to program
with Extbase. That way Extbase can become far more popular among developers.

And, of course, Extbase guys should stop just coding and do proper docs :)

What do you think?

> This is not about which framework is better and which one is not. It's about
> giving users a hand when they need to choose out of 10 different address
> listings...

People generally choose by features, not by extension type. Suppose you
have a comments extension, which is primitive but Extbased and another,
which is pibase-based but with some AI for spam control, approvals,
captchas, etc. Would you choose the primitive one? I guess not.

> If you think that Extbase is the wrong choice then you must stand up now and
> tell why rather than waiting for lib/div & co. to win the "race". Actually,
> there is no such race since Extbase was already chosen as the framework
> which supercedes tslib_pibase. If you think we're on the wrong path, then
> explain why.

I do not think so. I am neutral to Extbase because I have my own private
MVC framework for TYPO3, which I use for approximately two years and which
is made with runtime performance and development speed in mind. As to
Extbase, I do not have opinion about it. I tried it three times durionng
half a year period (the official blog_example), it showed runtime errors
three times and I gave up with Extbase. I am not against it but I will not
use it. It is enough to fail three times to show me that I can't rely on it :(

> You are free to stay with tslib_pibase if you still like it, but there is no
> point in battling with all the other frameworks for the next 3 years.
> Otherwise, the rise of TYPO3 v5 will take even longer due unavailbility of
> daily-use plugins.

Well, I think it makes sense to choose the best tool for each project. I am
quite far from choosing the tool due to ideological reasons :)

>> That would be much better than highlighting extensions. If
>> Extbase wants to win, it must show that it is better. Forcing it will cause
>> the opposite reaction. Nothing goes well if it is forced on people.
>>
> 
> Encouragement != Force
> 
> I hope you see the difference.

I do. But highlighting is not encouragement. It is force. Showing people
how easy and simple to do it would be encouragement. Do you agree?

-- 
Dmitry Dulepov
TYPO3 core&security team member
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmitryd
Read more @ http://dmitry-dulepov.com/