[TYPO3-dev] Getting rid of deprecated TypoScript stuff in TYPO3

[Michael Stucki]

Hi Olly,

thanks for picking this up.

> Several months/years ago we agreed on marking code in the TYPO3 Core
> with the PHPDoc tag "@deprecated" and will remove the class or method
> two minor releases later. This means a functionality marked as
> deprecated in TYPO3 4.1 will be removed in TYPO3 4.3.
> 
> However, there are many more thing that were marked to be obsolete one
> day but never have been cleaned up. By way of example if you search the
> TypoScript reference (TSref) for the keyword "deprecated" you'll find a
> lot of stuff...

The main problem is that what we have marked is not reported to the site
admin, though possible.

Currently, if you want to find out about deprecated directive usage, you
need to read through your whole TypoScript, UserTS, PageTS and extension
(PHP) code. I would like to improve that first.

> There are three possibilities how to handle this:
> a) Integrate checks for the out-dated stuff and blow up the whole source
> code a bit more. When old stuff is found, a warning appears in some kind
> of log file (sysLog or whatever).

I'm all in for that. t3lib_div::sysLog() should be utilised every time
that a deprecated TypoScript property or PHP function is used.

We should finally force users to set up a system log file, and also look
through it. I could even imagine to remove the yellow warning box in
favour of syslog messages...

> b) Integrate a very complex update wizard in the install tool that
> parses all TypoScript and configuration issues that are out-dated and
> inform the administrator directly in the user interface.
> c) Rely on the fact that it was stated in the documentation that
> properties are "deprecated" and should not have been used any longer -
> and... just remove the old stuff, save many checks during the processing
> and speed up the whole rendering process.
> 
> Personally I'm in for "c)" but wanted to know about your opinion on that.

1. a) as soon as the feature is marked for deprecation
2. c) as discussed, two releases after the deprecation was announced
3. For existing deprecated features that are not reported through
   t3lib_div::syslog(), I'm afraid we should reset the timer and wait
   for two more releases...

However, two things which I could imagine though:

1. Introduce t3lib_div::sysLog() reportings in patch level versions now!
2. Wait only for one feature release instead of two. If we tell the
   users and they don't change their code after one release, I expect
   they also would not change it after two of them...

- michael
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