[Typo3-dev] singletons instead of pre-loaded objects

[Ernesto Baschny]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Leendert Brouwer [Netcreators] wrote:

> > If you have
> > Typo3-background, you don't need OO-background.

> That's a painful statement. You oppose the particular design of one
> application to a widely accepted methodology such as OO, and say one
> shouldn't argue with the superiority (excuse the exaggeration of words) of
> the first.

I was talking about developing Typo3 extentions, not about developing
general software. If you are doing Typo3-stuff, you don't need
OO-background. This is Kaspers choice, since he has no OO-background.

I do have OO background and my point of view is like yours, since I find
myself more and more commited to the OO techniques when I do my own stuff.
Have you seen the development of the new Gallery (G2), in PHP
(http://gallery.sf.net)? I think its design really groundbreaking for the
open-source PHP-world, and I really hope more people would get into its
(especially long-term)  benefits.

> > Of course then there is a
> > much more urgent need of proper documentation that explains not just HOW
> > to do stuff, but also what the author was thinking when implementing it
> > this way.

> Not really, one of the points of OO is abstraction, thus eliminating large
> part of the need to know everything about internals.

Again I was talking about what Typo3 needs if it doesn't make use of well
known OO-design techniques: Very good documentation! If one uses well
known OO techniques, he doesn't need to document obvious parts, because it
has been all explained in one of the million OO-books out there. But if
Kasper chooses a Typo3-specific techique, he (or someone) DOES need to
explain and justify it in detail.

> > The Typo3-vocabulary is also very rich and also ensures communication, if
> > there is a place where you can read what is meant by the terms.

> Yes, countless acronyms and understandings that are only known in the TYPO3
> world.

That's true, I have been developing some things with Typo3 for some
weeks/months now, and it is really a mess of vocabulary. Acronyms, lots of
global variables, etc.

> Sure, if you've been in there for years all those terms might seem
> common to you. Just like chinese is common to chinese people, and english is
> to the world (replace 'chinese' with TYPO3, and 'english' with OO, see what
> I mean?).

I see what you mean, and I agree. My point in my arguments was:  Typo3 is
the way it is and won't probably change fundamentally, and thus we need
very good documentation. You can expect Kasper to be open to ideas that he
expects to bring general benefit to Typo3's future, but which doesn't open
the need to rewrite major Typo3 parts and which ensure to be more or less
compatible with existing extentions.

For some time I was thinking about how cool it would be to have a Typo3
CMS (with such a nice backend and other cool ideas) properly OO-designed.
Maybe someday someone will do this, but as Kasper noted: I can't imagine
someone as motivated as Kasper in the last years in the near future to do
this. But... Who knows??


Greets,
Ernesto