[TYPO3-ect] 5.0 roadmap - continuation or new branch

[Robert Lemke]

Hi folks,

Michael Scharkow wrote:

> I never proposed starting from scratch, but I argued that a lot of the 
> components in TYPO3 core are basically too complex to develop or even 
> maintain, like TCEMAIN, so compared to refactoring old stuff a rewrite 
> seems even less work. However, this does not at all mean that we start 
> with a blank file because a lot of components can very well be used, so 
> the whole development is incremental rather than from scratch.

Correct. We'll still have to discuss how much we'll refactor and how 
much must be written from the scratch, but I tend to take little 
iterating steps which allow for frequently publish working prototypes. 
This is far less risky than trying to create a 5.0 on a blank sheet of 
phpaper.

> According to Robert's (not my) proposal there are even three teams: One 
> maintaining 4.x for a time, one working on 4.5 and one for 5.0 .
> I argue that a) 4.5 can be either cosmetic changes only or a 5.0pre if 
> you don't want to waste time on back-and forward-compat issues, b) 4.x 
> should be maintained by those who are interested in it and have it in 
> production, c) we already have more teams than we can sustainably 
> handle, so a 4.x team and a 5.x team is enough.

In the meantime the 4.5 team has got a name - it's the HCI team. So I 
agree with you that having a 4.5 core team would be too much a luxury, 
we just don't have that many people. As it's planned currently, we'll 
therefore have a 4.x core team and a 5.x core team.

>> Old extensions would continue to run in the 4.x branch, but mayor
>> alterations would be necessary to port them to in 5.x branch.
> 
> I don't see why this should be the case. The core-extension connection 
> is rather thin and I am sure that *backward* compatibility is no 
> problem. But you seemed to be worried about forward compat, so that new 
> stuff runs on old TYPO3 or PHP4. This is impossible without sacrificing 
> all the advantages of the new platform.

We'll have to figure that out - I agree that most of the functionality 
of most extensions use a very specific part of TYPO3 (pi_base or TCEmain 
for example). It would be relatively easy to create wrapper / fassade / 
whatever to keep these extensions compatible. But as most of the 
extensions don't have a 100% clean code, we'll experience some suprises, 
I bet.

What's important in my opinion is that we provide the extension 
developers with documentation of the new interfaces quite early in time
and make sure that important and popular extensions are adapted before 
the final release of 5.0.

And I agree with you, Michael, that our users don't *have to* migrate to 
5.0 if they don't need the new features - we'll give them enough time by 
maintaining the 4.x branch. Therefore 5.0 will be definately depend on PHP5.

Cheers,
robert