Alfresco and custom developments

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simon

How does Alfresco sees custom developments and new updates work together?

I could develop some piece of software that could be useful for other people / companies and try to convince you guys of my excellent developers skills so you would add my extension to the new Alfresco release but what if I try to write some very specific additions that are only useful for my company, how can I be sure that this code will still work in the next version?

From version 1.2 of the repository, the system configuration has been designed to be extensible and overridable.

If I wrote some code that changes these files (not that I did, just as an example) I should reevaluate all my programs to check if it's compliant with this new way of work. More aspects of the Alfresco system will change in the near future and more people will use Alfresco as a framework so how do you make sure that this developments aren't wasted efforts?

Your view on standards, the PHP library and roadmap will help but will this be enough?

I didn't really find an answer on this question in the forum or WIKI.

simon

I did send my question by mail because I needed a quick reply. Here is Pauls answer:

With 1.2 we do make a large number of extensions possible that are
upgrade-safe (as much as can be realistically expected), but we still
plan to make improvements in the hook points for enhancements -
particularly with respect to the UI.

On a general principle, if someone comes up with complementary features,
we'll include it, since it is likely to be useful to others.  We're
likely to make additional features configurable (as a minimum so the
feature can be disabled if not wanted).

If you have made changes in a pre-1.2 release, it is certainly worth
your while to map them to the new config approach.  It also means that
it's much easier to distribute as an add-on, so you can choose whether
you want to have your stuff included in the core or not.  If you need
help in getting it set up safely, post questions to the forum and send a
link by email to info if it's urgent.

If you point me to the forum post, I'll add this reply there, so others
can see it too.

Does that help answer your question?

Regards
Paul

Many thanks!