[TYPO3-dev] The extbase dilemma

[Jochen Rau]

Hi Daniel,

Daniel Brün <dbruen at saltation.de> writes:
> stormy weather today in framework-country! ;-)

Actually, it is very stormy here in Western Massachusetts, too.

> My fear is that many other agencies that are not as software-focused as we
> are just do not know that there are problems. You really have to dig in
> extbase to find this stuff out, because it is not documented anywhere!

I would say, everyone using a framework should dqig into it to know its
capabilities and its limits. For most use-cases Extbase works very
well. I am pretty sure that a lot of problems you encountered can be
tackled on a code level (aka as bug fixing). Some might be more related
to the architecture of Extbase. We can reduce a lot of complexity
here. Let's have an open discussion about that.

> Everyone gets the impression that extbase is a finished product and the
> future of TYPO3. A search on web or twitter for fluid or extbase almost
> exclusively results in people cheering this framework up.

Extbase is not the future of TYPO3, it's TYPO3 v5.

Whether it is "finished" or not depends upon your definition of the
word. it is not finished in the sense that it serves all the needs. It
will (probably) never be finished in the sense of having all the
features of FLOW3. But it is finished in the sense as one can use it in
production. And it is finished as the public API is pretty stable and
breaking changes are documented.

I agree, that we (= the users of Extbase; not only the Extbase team)
have to better document edge-cases, best-practices.

> Of course, we will gladly supply examples and benchmarks for the
> problems we found.

Thanks. I suggest to set up a wiki page on forge, so everybody can learn
from you experience and find solutions for the problems. Otherwise your
deep knowledge would be lost.

> What is lacking in extbase is some kind of CTO that monitors the development
> of the framework, a decent code review process and thorough quality
> assurance. With structures like these in place we would probably feel much
> better today.

Bastian Waidelich does a great job as project leader and he has all the
technical insight. So, it is neither a CTO missing, nor is it a code
review process (as we use gerrit now). The main problem is the lack of
manpower atm. Many people use Extbase for their daily work. We have to
find ways to motivate them to contribute knowledge and code.

Best
Jochen





-- 
Every nit picked is a bug fixed