Thread

Hmmm,

This is presents a conundrum. I really don’t want to put a whole lot of money into development at this point, especially if it requires third-party add-ons, if it is going to have to be redone with the new release. On the other hand, there is no telling when the new release will be released. How are others addressing this issue? Are others just waiting, or are they moving ahead not know how much will have to be redone? I would like to move ahead with my project, but I can wait.

Rich

Rich I don’t mean to sound funny on this, far from it but if you can get your site working with the existing ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 and 3rd party plugins etc… then you’re not really very likely to have to re-do anything are you?

I see it a bit like buying a car or a computer, something like that anyway. You might buy the latest and greatest of either of those and then next week a brand new version comes out with great new features. The way I look at buying something like a computer for instance is that I buy the best that I can afford and something which is going to last me quite a while. Even though there are great new versions out you don’t have to purchase them if you can get the existing one to do what you need.

This is exactly the same for ExpressionEngine. If you can get 1.6.7 to do what you need now and your site fully works then why would you need to upgrade?

Just a thought anyway.

Best wishes,

Mark

Usually, what happens with any system, is that changes/improvements are required, either because of changing circumstances within the marketplace, or forced changes in the underlying platform. Support, particularly with add-ons, is lost, and you are forced with a decision to re-write, become outmoded, or live with the problems (often security issues for the hand of the developer). It absolute chaos in Drupal and Joomla land, because of the exact same issues that there are no migration paths between releases. Wordpress, on the other hand, has always provided a very clean migration path between releases, though add-ons and themes to become obsolete. Microsoft, with their operating systems, began this trend which never existed in the mainframe world. The customers would go berserk, if there were not clear migration path for the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in their critical customer systems. Unfortunately, in the PC world, it has become a common practice.

In any case, I am concerned about unnecessary doubled costs to myself due to obsolescence of a system. To me, it would be a waste, if I built a system, with certain costs, and could have saved a significant amount of that cost, and built a better system, simply by waiting a few months. As I said, I do not have to start to build today.

Rich

Support, particularly with add-ons, is lost, and you are forced with a decision to re-write, become outmoded, or live with the problems (often security issues for the hand of the developer).

Just for the record, we are committed to supporting the 1.6 branch for quite some time after the release of EE 2, especially when it comes to security related issues. In that sense, it will be an entirely new product.

In any case, I am concerned about unnecessary doubled costs to myself due to obsolescence of a system.

As I’ve said, EE 1.6.7 will not suddenly become obsolete. It shouldn’t have much of an impact on the life-cycle management of your website.

We’ve stated publicly that the 2.0 path is an update, not a migration. If you are using stock EE, or EE with any of the most popular addons, the update should be about as hard as any other version update. Of course there are always unforeseen things that come up, but we are working very hard to minimize those.

I continue to recommend that developers build on 1.6 - it is a proven, reliable system that won’t be going anywhere in the short term, and presents a clear, straightforward update into 2.0 should you choose to take it. At EllisLab we are committed to keeping 1.6 maintained, secure and viable for some time.

Hi Ingmar,

I can appreciate your optimism on this point, however, this path has already be traveled. Joomla and Drupal users are caught in a giant vice between releases (Drupal is horrible in this respect). New features being added to the latest release, while the old release is slowly withering away - and users crunched as they consider the costs and unpredictability of migration. I would not call it legal torture, but it is pretty close.

For this reason, I have a concern about migration paths, which it seems like I will have to deal with. Since there is no timeframe for the new release, it makes the issue particularly difficult to deal with, but that is business. 😊

Thanks for your help.

Rich

Hi Derek,

Can you amplify on this? For example, an update between versions in Wordpress usually consists of:

1) Uploading new files.
2) Checking whether the new version breaks the theme in any way (very common for more complicated themes).
3) Checking which add-ons are broken.

Not very pretty, but something that I have learned to deal with, and probably the best of what I have seen in the open source world. Are you objectives similar?

Thanks for the additional info.

Rich

I’m not sure what you’re asking Rich, if you want to restate I’ll be happy to add a bit more information where I can. If you’re asking what the update steps will be specifically, they will be very similar to the current version update instructions.

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me.

What I am asking, is what the upgrade instructions will look like when the new release will become available. Will it be something like I described for Wordpress - in other words a
upgrading by simply uploading the new files, and then customers testing out third-party add-ons, modules, themes revisions, etc. and fixing as necessary? Are there particular add-ons that you are testing to ensure that they will continue work in the new version? I am assuming you have a target that you are testing for and attempting to achieve in regards to upgrading. If there is such a target, it would make it easier to build a system now, since I will understand the impact later on, as I seek to upgrade.

Thanks again for your help.

Rich

What I am asking, is what the upgrade instructions will look like when the new release will become available.

Ah good, I did understand. Answered above.

To the second part of your question, the developer preview is our attempt to reach out to third party developers - most of the popular add ons are included, but a specific list is not available at this time.

You may also find these useful.
- EE2 FAQ
- Preparing for ExpressionEngine 2.0
- ExpressionEngine 2.0: fully CodeIgnited

Thanks for the additional information and links.

Rich

The reason I’m considering waiting for EE2 on some projects is the fact that I want to work with CI rather than the existing code base when it comes to extending core functionality.