[TYPO3-v4] Minutes from the pre-4.5.1 release meeting

[Ernesto Baschny]

Hi!

We now are in a transition phase to the 4.6 development. The release
manager for 4.6 is yet to be decided and announced and the official
kickstart of 4.6 development will be done during the Code Sprint in
Berlin [1]

[1] http://wiki.typo3.org/Code_Sprint_Berlin_2011.

So we in our Today's meeting we discussed overall TYPO3 related topics,
and of course also our next release of 4.5.1. Present were: Olly Hader
(core team leader), Ben van't Ende (community manager), Steffen Kamper
(4.5 technical leader) and Ernesto Baschny (4.5 release manager).

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Performance session
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Steffen sat with Rupi Germann this weekend to explore some performance
bottlenecks for a whole day. The full report can be read in the
typo3.dev list. Basically they analysed the backend using cachegrind.

It turned out to be very effective and they already found some
optimization potential. Two patches already available:

* extdirect fetching the API through multiple "ajax.php" calls (also
fixeable for 4.5, see thread and patch in typo3.dev list). Steffen will
refine that to make a RFC out of it.
* BEgetRootLine doesn't use a cache when list view is called in
"extended mode" (problem with viewOnClick). Discussion in core list. Fix
will be done also for 4.5 (and potentially 4.4).
* ajax.php doing "less stuff", this requires major refactoring of
init.php: A project for 4.6, not for 4.5.
* The random byte generator (generating our new security tokens, taking
lots of time reading /dev/urandom). Steffen already contacted Helmut to
see what can be done about it.
* jsMinify is not performant for applying to inline javascript. Instead
try to outsource more JS to external files (in typo3temp). Ernesto
mentioned that we should try to make more methods "static" because lots
of inline javascript currently could easily be just written out to
static files shipped with the core. Steffen will take a closer look at
it. A project for 4.6.

Some of the optimizations will be able to be ported to 4.5 still, while
some which require some refactoring will be only included in 4.6 and later.

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Release Schedule
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We still keep our release plan. Next week on Wednesday we will release:

* 4.5.1
* 4.4.7
* 4.3.11

Ernesto noted that there are still some pending issues left to be solved
(as mentioned in the previous news [2]). But since that news, some
developers were activated again and work is being done on the issues.

[2] http://forge.typo3.org/news/421

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Articles
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Ernesto mentioned that he wrote an article about 4.5 which will appear
on the next issue of the german magazin T3N. It goes a bit more in
technical details, compared to our press release.

Ben also is waiting for more articles about specific features of the new
TYPO3 release from our developers. E.g.:

* Sonja about Workspaces
* Stefan Galinksi about the trees
* Stan about the current state of the RTE
* Steffen Kamper about the new extension manager

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typo3.org Relaunch Week
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On the next days the "t3o relaunch week" (in April) will be officially
announced: intensive team-work sessions with the goal on getting issues
for the typo3.org relaunch completed. The relaunch won't be ready after
the week, but the groundwork should be done at least.

Steffen reminded that there is already a TER-FE team [3] working on a
new version of TER-FE (the extension which runs on typo3.org and handles
the extension list and the TER connectivity). It will be completely
rewritten, provide the same features but based on Extbase/Fluid. Current
active members are Kay Vogel, Thomas Loeffler and maybe also Fabien
Udriot. Steffen thinks it would make sense to also invite them to the
typo3.org relaunch week.

[3] http://forge.typo3.org/projects/extension-terfe/

Steffen asks to integrate his http://snippets.typo3.org also on the new
typo3.org (so that its not an external server anymore). Olly noted that
the current snippets site is not working (caching issues). Steffen will
look into it, but notes that he's not satisfied with the current site
anyway.

Olly asked about http://support.typo3.org. Steffen said that this
project is not active anymore. But there is a project for integrating a
"Forum" view to our newsgroups. It's already running on a development
installation, based on FUDforum software. Currently it works, but some
issues remaining (attachments, bidirectional posts, ..) and also
integration of a TYPO3 design. We should coordinate with Ingmar and his
team, maybe invite them also to the week.

We mentioned http://news.typo3.org which currently has some unsolved
problems (e.g. RTE images not being exported and displayed on remote
sites like typo3.org). And also the known caching issues after the
import at typo3.org (news pointing to wrong articles..).

Topic upgrade typo3.org to 4.5 was touched. It's a "work in progress",
Stucki has it in his hand. Ben will contact him again to see the status.
Basically the upgrade process needs lots of insight know how because our
core is heavily patched to our demands and the implementation has grown
biologically over time. It has to be well tested.

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Next meet-ups
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Ernesto and Steffen will do a short meeting next Monday to discuss the
open matters. And then meet also with Olly and Benni for coordinating
the releases on Wednesday, 23th February.

Cheers,
Ernesto

-- 
Ernesto Baschny
Core Developer V4 Team
Release Manager TYPO3 4.5

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