[TYPO3-core] (New) TYPO3 CMS Vision

[Michael Stucki]

Hi Xavier, hi all,

Thanks Xavier for your mail, it really hits the nail!

When we speak about visions, we should always consider the legacy of
TYPO3 CMS. We need to be clear about our target group, and focus on that.

I doubt that TYPO3 CMS will be able to grow largely by changing common
habits. We will rather loose users who are disappointed because
improvements turn out to be more complex than before.

Greetings, Michael

Am 26.08.2014 um 09:49 schrieb Xavier Perseguers:
> Hi,
> 
> Just would like to discuss a particular point coming up regularly.
> 
>>> * Make TER not the only distribution channel for extensions: allow
>>> Composer support as well as GitHub hooks or even an official GitHub
>>> application that lets you attach a listener which creates new TER
>>> release records based on new git tags. This is both for developers and
>>> users: developers will have an easier life and users will have more
>>> frequent updates which match 100% with what you would find on GitHub as
>>> downloadable tag-zips.
>>
>> This might loose a whole bunch of TYPO3-'users'.
>> why? in my view we have more people who use TYPO3 than pure editors and
>> developers. there are a lot of integrators which do a lot more than
>> editors but are miles away from being able to program (especially in
>> bigger concepts than old procedural programming) or handle developer tools.
>> these integrators are happy to have a TER where they find all extensions
>> to resolve their problems. all in a nice(?) gui like EM.
> 
> [...]
> 
> That's a very important point. TYPO3 CMS tends to focus too much (and
> more and more often) on the developer. New programming paradigm, code
> cleanup, composer, ... I'm a developer, I won't say I'm not happy with
> them, of course! But in fact we largely forget about what users want
> (and by users I mean both editors and large part of the integrators out
> there).
> 
> Having a centralized repository for TYPO3 extensions is what makes it
> appealing for most users. We may miss feature X or Y, handling from CLI,
> ... but all in all the TER allows virtually anyone to easily contribute
> to the TYPO3 ecosystem without worrying about Git, tagging, pull
> requests, review workflow with mandatory score before merging and the
> rest. (As a side note I agree that contributing was a lot easier in 4.5
> as upload was possible from EM and getting it back "one way or another"
> - through an extension - would be terrific for many.)
> 
> As a developer, I understand why some of us would love having
> auto-publishing upon Git tagging, or being able to recursively install
> dependencies from composer, wahoo, that's so sexy naturally. But what is
> the benefit for the end user (again, normal TYPO3 integrator)? Be
> honest: none or next to none!
> 
> I see drawbacks however. Having more than one known source will imply
> not knowing where to look for something, will lead to new lengthy
> development to glue everything together again after some time, will add
> debugging sessions because suddenly something broke, ... and if e.g.,
> composer would certainly ease continuous deployment or similar, let's
> remember that most users (and many agencies as well) are working with
> shared hosting with unsecured FTP access and it may be far from perfect
> but... it works fine!
> 
> Please, please, please! We should not forget our motto:
> 
> 	"Inspire people to share."
> 
> Inspiring people to share, for me personally means in regards to the
> "TER" topic:
> 
> - I'm using existing infrastructure to publish my work because this is
> how it should be done, I benefit a lot from it over time and it's fair
> to play together, even if as a developer I'd be excited with other
> techniques
> 
> - I'm using a public repository so that people with some knowledge may
> "easily" contribute and send me fixes one way or another
> 
> - I try to keep cool with everyone and take on my time when someone
> creates a ticket but is unable to provide a patch, or send me a patch
> not the way I would like to have it (e.g., by mail, or by attaching a
> diff instead of pushing it to Gerrit or creating a pull request on GitHub)
> 
> - I try to avoid ping pong with tickets by fixing nitpicking myself
> 
> - I take time to create a "good" documentation, to show everyone that
> quality is not related to the infrastructure behind but to the will of
> the author to do it right
> 
> The interesting part about being a developer is that we are able to ease
> of work with scripts, ... so publishing to TER while tagging may be done
> by creating some well-crafted hook and sharing it. It may be used by
> whoever wants to do that but I see no reason to invest time and effort
> to force everyone to do it like that. Again, this is against our motto.
> 
> My wish for the future of TYPO3 CMS is that we stop focusing on making
> us, developers, happier, but step back, use our own product for real
> projects of some scope and listen to our users.
> 
> Hooks vs Signal/Slot, ... be honest, who really cares? In the end having
> a way to influence another extension is what matters, and we are
> thankful to the developer who thought accessibility. The rest is just
> nitpicking again. And if someone with next to zero knowledge of "proper
> programming" is able to extend an extension or the Core to its need, we
> won, that's exactly what TYPO3 CMS is all about!
> 
> And last point. We, as developers, have the bad habit of being largely
> pedant with another's code. "Why did you use this technology, why did
> you do it this way, why, why why". And it's the same with TYPO3 CMS. Of
> course some parts are "old", "not the way you would have written it in
> 2014", ... but in the end it works! Rework it if it brings something but
> not for the sake of doing it "the correct way". So, again, instead of
> criticizing, let's be more humble and acknowledge that what matters is
> keeping up the spirit and working together to achieve some better level
> for our users, not matter what we prefer because contributing and
> inspiring people to share is about being a respectful community that
> aims at delivering a better user experience for day-to-day users.
> 
> Thanks for reading and... keep up the TYPO3 spirit
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Xavier
>