TYPO3 Talk with Tomas: Author of EXT.crawler

I always find it hard to  tell something about yourself, but will give it a go.

I’m Tomas, 41  Years old and come from Aalborg (Denmark), and live in Germany for 7.5 years now. I fell in love with Open Source and TYPO3 many years ago, and I want to do as much open source work as I can afford.  

That's actually a fun story. It started as a Joomla project. But I couldn't get my head around it and how it worked and how to extend it. So I looked for alternatives and found TYPO3 quite nice. This was back in 2004, so back then the back wasn't as nice as today, but I still went for it, approached the client and ended up selling the project as TYPO3 instead of the Joomla the asked for at first. 

My contributions to TYPO3 can vary in many ways. Probably I’m most “known” for the TYPO3 Crawler which I have been doing the main development of since around 2015.

I’ve been part of the TYPO3.org team since 2010 where I started with doing small CSS fixes for the TYPO3 backend, in 2013 it converted into being developer for the TYPO3 TER Extension repository where I work together with e.g. Thomas Loeffler (Team Lead of the TYPO3.org Team).

Lately I have been helping out with the TYPO3 Rector by Sebastian Schreiber, which is some work that I really enjoy as I learn a lot. 

My latest contribution to the TYPO3 Community is the GitHub Action for TYPO3 Extension Upload (https://github.com/marketplace/actions/typo3-ter-uploader) which will help developers easier upload extensions automatically to the TYPO3 TER from GitHub. 
I work at AOE, and they always encourage us to do Open Source, and publish what ever we work on that is considered generic functionality. Earlier AOE was a big contributor to TYPO3, with more Core Developers over time. The engagement in hours put into TYPO3 has dropped from AOE as fewer clients of AOE is using TYPO3, but AOE is still engaged in Sponsoring Code Sprints (Food and Location).

They also sponsor a lot of the time that I use for developing the work I do for TYPO3.

Besides TYPO3 AOE has developed a Template Engine written in GO, Flamingo (https://www.flamingo.me/) which is also open source, it’s used for the projects we do within etc. the Aviation industry.

As I’m not in sales, this question is hard for me to answer. Advice really depends on where you are on your level. My advice for a freelancer would not be the same as for a well established agency.

It’s really hard to answer as I’m only a developer, I’m not really involved in any planning or strategies for TYPO3. Surprised? No, because TYPO3 is a rock solid CMS that solves most problems, I had never, so far, faced a challenge that could be solved with TYPO3, but saying that doesn’t mean that everything should be solved with TYPO3.

Every tool has its purpose, and TYPO3 is an amazing CMS system, but processing data-streams I would do with something else.

Sorry no.

I cannot say what we missed, but I would love to get rid of the “TYPO3 is a German CMS” the same way we got rid of the “Not invented here”-mentality that the community was suffering from before. Luckly with composer it got easier to replace components and accept that we didn’t have to write all code by our self.

I don't know other CMS nor their community well enough to give a fair statement about that.

To get known outside of Germany. It’s getting better, but still some way to go.

I have honestly never used it, had a few peaks, but haven't built my impression of it yet.
In general I like the idea of a marketplace. Just don’t know if I will ever use it.

Really depends on what is up for sale.

Important, but more important that it starts using more standard components from e.g. Symfony. This enables non TYPO3 developers to easier get into TYPO3.

From a developers perspective the success comes from the constant stride for being better and implementing more and more standard components from e.g. Symfony.

The “not invented here”-mentality that we had in the TYPO3 community is luckily something that is more or less left behind. We have seen the light in using well tested and used components from other open source projects. This is a big win for all. 

Part of this paradigm change of course comes for the introduction of Composer, which has improved the PHP eco system in general.

I have always wanted a Mentor, but never really succeeded in a structured way to get that. I have some people that I contact more often than others.

Some of them are Benni Mack https://twitter.com/bennimack and  Tizian Schmidlin https://twitter.com/TizianTweets which both have helped me a lot with the TYPO3 Crawler too. 
Lately Sebastian Schreiben has been more and more someone that I turn to, he has a big knowledge and is really helpful, kind and respectful. I really enjoy working with him, that’s also one of the reasons why I have engaged in the TYPO3 Rector.

I learn a lot from that work and from working with Sebastian, it’s really valuable to me.

I don’t read many blogs and not regularly, but I often end up at the blog from Daniel Goerz https://usetypo3.com/

The Documentation Team of TYPO3 is putting in a lot of work to improving the TYPO3 Documentation in General, and they are really doing a great job, the documentation has improved a lot over the years. Big kudos to the team behind. It’s really valuable.

More contributors can always be a help, some areas are a one-person army, which can be exhausting. Deep respect to people putting this much time into TYPO3. 

I’m really not a marketing or sales person, as I mentioned before. So I barely know what can be done here, to establish a better Brand.

During the last year my open source contributions got more regular than normal. When I don’t work on open source I enjoy playing/practising golf, going for a run or riding my bicycle.