[TYPO3-v4] The future of ExtJS 4 in TYPO3 4.7

[François Suter]

Hi Olly,

> So, our suggestion is to revert the ExtJS 4 parts and continue with a
> clean TYPO34.7.  However, if somebody out there has a good alternative
> on how to proceed with ExtJS 4, please share your thoughts and ideas. If
> there are no major objections and no solution that really saves us, we
> will proceed very soon with reverting back to ExtJS 3.

Thanks for bringing this difficult topic out in the open.

Among the alternatives, it is definitely worth checking if we can get 
any support from the Sencha guys. Obviously the fact that ExtJS seems to 
change its API with little regard for others is a pain, but we have 
probably gone too far down that way to turn back. Of course we could try 
to strike a balance between ExtJS and jQuery, as suggested by Benni.

One question: what's the impact for the BLE stuff if we go back to ExtJS 
3? You seemed to say that the ExtJS 4 migration was not related, so I 
guess it's ok, right?

I could see a couple of other alternatives:

1) for a long time now we have been blocked in terms of version 
management by the 4+1 ceiling on our major version number. This has 
limited us to major versions (number 4.x) and maintenance releases. We 
have lost the possibility to make minor releases, which could contain 
smaller features. With regards to the current problem, the ExtJS 4 
migration could be targeted at the 4+1.0.0 branch (which I'm explicitly 
not calling "5" ;-) ), while some other features could go into the 4.7.0 
branch.

2) the above scenario is very desirable in the longer term IMO, but may 
not be possible in the short term. Hence we could also decide to 
postpone 4.7 by a fixed and reasonable amount of time. Say 3 months. 
This would be considered as pseudo-feature freeze where new features 
would not be allowed except as they relate to the BLE project.

Although I was a proponent of the shorter release cycles (because of the 
problem outlined in 1) above), in retrospect I fear we are now going too 
fast. Considering our clients I would say something like 95% of them are 
very happy about the LTS coming with 4.5. They don't care about 
upgrading TYPO3 (actually many don't care about the software running 
their site), as long as their site is running. Having a version with LTS 
thus sounds like a very good idea to them.

That's to say that - taking my agency as an example - we are very much 
focused on 4.5. We have an interest in 4.6 because of some of its 
features, but only very few clients really need them. Currently 4.7 
seems like one version too much. This is not to say that it's not 
interesting, or that the planned feature set is not good. On the 
contrary, 4.7 will be a very rich release. But I feel like the short 
release cycle now leaves us barely time to breathe between releases, 
much less upgrade client sites. As soon as we start thinking about it, 
another version is around the corner. I don't know what we promised to 
the BLE, but - as long as we don't break any promises - postponing 4.7 
wouldn't be a bad thing, as long as we agree on fixed terms for this.

Cheers

-- 

Francois Suter
Cobweb Development Sarl - http://www.cobweb.ch