[TYPO3-dev] The extbase dilemma

[Felix Oertel]

Hey Dan,

Am 18.05.11 11:19, schrieb Daniel Brün:
> writing this post is feeling awkward to me, but I have to write it
> nevertheless.

I know how that feels. ;-)

> extbase is a backport of a framework (FLOW3) that is not production-ready
> itself now, and certainly was far from it by the time the first version of
> extbase surfaced. Strange enough, many extbase-based extensions are already
> used in production context, while there are no real FLOW3-projects live.

Ok, so you ask yourself why extbase extensions are used in production 
the same time you are telling us you decided to build YOUR production 
extension on extbase?

You considered extbase working stable while knowing it's built as a 
backport of a framework which is not stable itself? How can a backport 
of alpha software be stable?

> this is going to be one of the most sophisticated PHP-frameworks around - once it is finished.

Same with extbase. It's not finnished and it will (most likely) become 
great, if it gets finnished.

> Speaking of new releases: the latest and greatest extbase release, the one bundled with
> TYPO3 4.5.2, is so incompatible to last years release that it requires a
> major rewrite of our codebase! Hooray.

Did you notice the changes happened in FLOW3 around this time? If 
extbase is a backport and FLOW3 changes alot, how can you expect extbase 
to stay the same?

Changes in FLOW3 are mostly not backwards compatible ... this is 
something we all have to live with using alpha software.

> The main purpose of extbase was to prepare developers for the next major
> release of TYPO3: Version 5.

Who told you that? ;-)

> Well, it really is not much more than some slight "preparation".

FLOW3 is alpha software ... how much preperation do you expect?

> Thanks to extbase, we are in trouble.

Some could say because of you and your descission you are in trouble. ;) 
But I guess it just depends ...

> We have a huge project that can not be easily upgraded to the latest version of TYPO3

Ya, I know that. Upgrading takes us a lot of time as well ... as 
mentioned, this is one of the downsides using alpha software.

> In no way does it live up to our standards.

Isn't this something you could have seen in before?

> and we mess it all up by making some halfheartedly put
> together semi-framework that is neither capable of running enterprise-scale
> projects nor is it in any thinkable way future proof.

Ya. I totally see and accept the problems you mention. In your case I 
think it was a bad descission to use extbase for such a project. The 
disadvantages are none you were the first one to see and feel.

As soon as you take the descission to use alpha software you implicitly 
accept the risk of a lot of self-bugfixing and a lot of work with every 
upgrade. It has a lot of advantages (like beeing top of the notch, know 
how lead) but you have to take the disadvantages as well.

This said, I think it was a wrong descission to raise extbase to beta 
state, giving people the wrong impressoin of offering beta software, 
while a backport of alpha software only can be alpha[*]. We have to 
improve communication a lot to let people know, extbase is developer's 
playground, backport, alpha software, something you can and should get 
warm with but is not the everyday solution for every known problem.

regards, foertel

PS: A long long time ago in a known land in a known open source cms 
project, all the shipped extensions were raised to 1.0.0 if they were 
stable and to stable if they were > 1.0.0. :-) This "raise software 
regardless of real existing code base" did not happen the first time.