Meet Daniel Siepmann, Germany (Application Podcast S2E02)

Broad, Deep TYPO3 Experience

Daniel Siepmann is a TYPO3 developer, integrator, and co-founder of his own web agency, Codappix GmbH. Daniel has a great deal of experience with TYPO3, both in the backend and as a community member and contributor. He says, “I've been doing TYPO3 backend development and some integration nonstop since 2012.” At Codappix, he also works with TYPO3. “I help TYPO3 agencies and other companies that use TYPO3 get the most out of the system, providing backend development skills, reviews, automated testing, or partnership to support them and bring them up to the next level.”

Your Friend and Helper

Daniel is an omnipresent force on the TYPO3 community channels. He says, “I participate in the community, like the Docs Team, the Education Committee, providing patches for issues, and of course, joining the Bar Camps and Dev Days.” Daniel has a reputation for being extremely helpful and knowledgeable in the TYPO3 community. 

Daniel finds being helpful to the community to be one of the best parts of TYPO3. He says, “I don’t think you need to have a lot of money or nice cars. It's more important to have nice people around you and to do something meaningful. For me, the easiest part of supporting everyone else and providing my knowledge is that most people are willing to listen, and they are grateful and thankful.”

He acknowledges that his various roles can be challenging to juggle, but he is thoughtful about balancing his time, boundaries, and responsibilities. He says, “I always try to be responsible for the things I want to be responsible for — nothing more, nothing less. So every time someone approaches me and asks, ‘Can you do that?’ I always try to find the border of what I'm responsible for.”

Jeffrey A. McGuire  0:03
Welcome to Application the TYPO3 Community Podcast. One, two. Welcome to Application the TYPO3 Community Podcast. I'm Jeffrey A. McGuire. You can call me Jam. And this is where we celebrate the TYPO3 community sharing your stories talking about your projects and the difference you make in around and with TYPO3 CMS. In today's episode of application, that TYPO3 community podcast, we visit a conversation I recorded under some difficult technical conditions in pandemic plate 2020 with Daniela zigman, TYPO3 developer and integrator and co founder of the kinetics web agency. people in the community have told me Daniel is an omnipresent force in community channels, always ready to answer questions and help people. And when he founded his company, he even made it his job to help other agencies get more out of TYPO3, that sort of perfect open source store. Daniel also contributes time and energy did the community docs team Education Committee core development answering issues making patches he's he's seems like a pretty busy guy. In our conversation, we talk about the intersection of self care, professionalism, contribution and healthy client relationships. He also has tips for becoming a better developer, and we dig into why TYPO3 being quote unquote, feature complete doesn't mean we're done or that there aren't more features coming for it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. As much as I enjoyed talking with that. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us who you are and what you do.

Daniel Siepmann  1:46
And then as you come from Germany, and I'm doing TYPO3, mostly back end development, partly integrating stuff, since I guess 2012, non stop, I've looked into some other parts, like TYPO3 flow back in the days when it was a part of TYPO3. But I'm always taking to TYPO3 in the end. And yeah, regarding that's my job. And besides that I'm also trying to participate in the community, like the docs team Education Committee, are filling out issues of providing patches for issues, and of course, joining the camps, and Dev days and stuff like that when they are happening.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  2:27
And so you've been you've been using TYPO3 since 2012.

Daniel Siepmann  2:30
Yeah, yeah. That was when I was a trainee in a web agency. And they were using top three. In the first year, I didn't use a three F, claim PHP, and the integrated solutions are in the second tier, I thought, okay, we are using a system here. So that might provide some benefits for us. So let's take a look what it's capable of, and how to actually use the system. And that's where the journey started for me.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  2:57
Oh, nice. So that's also part of the value proposition of using a CMS, for example, or a pre baked framework or platform because you don't have to build 90% of it again, you can you can go do the interesting thing, right?

Daniel Siepmann  3:10
Yes, right. That's that wasn't true for me for the first year, because I needed to build everything in plain PHP, and some are integrated. So I couldn't reuse anything. The first thing I learned was the tcaa, which is providing the input fields in the back end. And that already was mapping, you just put some configuration system and to get full featured forms with validation, permission stuff, all those kind of things. And that was a huge time saver.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  3:39
The table configuration array. Yes, haha. And then you were hooked.

Daniel Siepmann  3:44
Yeah, then I was hooked. And especially for me as still being a trainee. Everyone said, okay, you have an issue go today. And he's the expert, and had very strange because when the second tier and didn't know anything, except some parts of the TCPA. But as well, the first one who had a deeper look into the system, already were the experts. So and that, of course, gave extra power to go, always an extra step and have a looks so 2012, what

Jeffrey A. McGuire  4:14
version of be of TYPO3 was that?

Daniel Siepmann  4:17
Something was four in the front. And the first thing I'm really remembering I was working on was 4.7, which wasn't back in 2012. But when we did suffer three launch for a big customer when I've joined the team, and already was hanging out with was Yeah, most of the parts.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  4:34
Are you still working at the same agency today?

Daniel Siepmann  4:37
No. And this agency also doesn't exist anymore. They were bought by the customer. But no, I've left before because of different opinions where to go. And after I've left I learnt that everything was okay for the agency, which I didn't think that when when I was but afterwards I learned Okay, everyone is happy. They are just not me. So I need to leave the relationship and find a way to go to be happy.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  5:07
And have you found that way?

Daniel Siepmann  5:09
Yeah, we call it our own company. I guess 2002 years back. And yeah, now I'm working with customers alike and projects alike and have only afford this week. So

Jeffrey A. McGuire  5:23
congratulations. You're living the dream. Give us your shameless pitch. What is your company? And what do you do?

Daniel Siepmann  5:30
Yeah, we are called epics team. bH also founded in mentioned laptop, city where I live. And I'm doing something different than my colleagues, I'm more or less only helping tapper. Three agencies and other companies that are using tax free to get most out of the system, providing backend development skills, reviews, automated testing, or partnership with those top three companies to support them, and to rhinitis next level.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  6:01
Okay, so cutter picks, part of your main business is doing applications for clients. And then you provide TYPO3 support and enhancement services from that base. That's nice. That sounds like a fun job, too. It sounds really open source, because I think you're helping everyone else do better with the platform, right?

Daniel Siepmann  6:19
That was one of the big ideas, at least from for myself, by making them better, we can deliver better software and everyone should benefit. And

Jeffrey A. McGuire  6:29
so it's kind of also a nice coincidence, because I was talking with Henri Steiner recently for the podcast. He said about you. He said, whenever he has a question, you're there. And you you're super, super motivated to help. He wanted me to ask you, how do you know so much? He said, You know everything about TYPO3 and the stack and everything? Where does that motivation to be so helpful come from,

Daniel Siepmann  6:58
I hope I'm a person that doesn't think you need to have big money or nice cars, but it's more important to have nice people around you, and to do something meaningful. And I guess the easiest part for me to support, everyone else is just providing my knowledge, because some people are willing to hear and to listen, and I read fully and thankfully, if you provide some help, others just don't care. But that's okay. You have to deal with it. When you provide someone head and it helps him actually, sometimes you have doesn't have anyone else. But if it helps sell just thankfully and say thank you so much, you have saved me a lot of time. And most of the time, if you're on a camp, you also have a face upfront, and you just see them smiling and stuff like that. So that's, I guess, what's the motivation or what, where the motivation comes from?

Jeffrey A. McGuire  7:57
Nice and and on a good day, maybe they'll buy you a beer as well. I think the way the reason we have societies and the reason we do things together is because we I think naturally like to help each other. And I think that open source gives us a really interesting opportunity to sort of combine that with changing the world and acting in our own interest. At the same time, I guess, I think it's called enlightened self interest where you also said, so I like helping someone and I'm just going to help them because if they say thank you, that's cool. And that's good enough. But you also mentioned before, if they use the system better, all of us deliver better projects and can work a little bit better. And then I guess that comes around helps the whole thing in the end.

Daniel Siepmann  8:40
I guess out there are many reasons and just was the most important part. And what you've said, I also believe that humans are just social, adjust social, if you go to a football stadium, it doesn't matter if you are a CEO or someone else. Everyone has the same dreams that your team runs and supports the team. So I guess it's just the same. Uh huh. And it's strange if other people think okay, making war is a good idea. That's just why can you believe in something like,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  9:12
yeah,

Daniel Siepmann  9:13
it's way better? Just thing. Okay. Let's do something great. together. That's way better.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  9:18
Are you a football fan? Yes. mentioned bloodbath. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay. How's that going for you in 2020.

Daniel Siepmann  9:25
It's strange, because we live two kilometers from the stadium. And we joined every game at home back in last year. So that's strange not to be live when your team plays regarding the success of our team. Yeah. We just won six to zero in the Champions League. So yeah, that's going

Jeffrey A. McGuire  9:48
great. Nice. Nice. Nice. You do a lot in TYPO3. You said you work on the documentation and in the Education team and do you submit pcor patches are you on The core development team, yes, since

Daniel Siepmann  10:03
last year, but there are different kinds of levels. There are some people like Benji who are doing a lot of core patches. And people like me will do one or two in a month. If you are more or less every Well, of course, I'm not everywhere. But if you're in so many places, you can't spend the same amount of time and patient to every single part. So right, you have more bigger picture and doing less everywhere, but are better connected and maybe can guide us like on cams, and says, I'm okay, if you need let's talk to this guy, right God, and stuff like that and can have in other ways.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  10:43
It's not ideal from some viewpoints. But frankly, if you are involved with so many teams and so many different parts and systems, then then you kind of have a map to who gets what done right. And in an ideal world, a lot of people wish that open source projects didn't function like tribes so much, but actually, it's just another kind of human society. Right? Yeah, I guess there's like a, there's like a TYPO3 hotspots in mentioning that as well. Right. Isn't Boris hinter? there?

Daniel Siepmann  11:10
Yes, yes. He also he is not actually living in Venezuela purchase agency is.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  11:16
Yeah. And there is a Louisa Fassbender is right around the corner somewhere.

Daniel Siepmann  11:21
Yeah, I don't know where he, where she lives. But I guess she's working for marketing factory in Dusseldorf. But yes, just half an hour from Angela, actually mentioned that that's more or less on the left side of our hotspot in Germany, actually, because we have Metro Park and we're in Cologne. So other big cities around us. If you compare that to Munich, there's nothing around Munich. But if you're talking to someone about to sit off, and oh, there's also Essen and Cologne and also

Jeffrey A. McGuire  11:51
an evening and and yeah, and there really are there really are an extraordinary number of agencies in Dusseldorf and a great deal of TYPO3 in this in this region, actually. Yeah. As well as the TYPO3 company, right? That type of Yeah. Yeah. What is the coolest thing that you ever built with TYPO3?

Daniel Siepmann  12:12
Depends on how you define quizzes complex. If it's more complex, is it more cool to solve the issue or is it complex because it has a nice use case with customer, or because it's something fancy new to you. So it's very hard to define that one cool thing, because if I want to cool things over a long time, I would just quit my job into something else, I always try to do one cool thing in a month or like something like that. For me, it's actually quite cool right now to do backend development for one customer to my first second module again, it's also cool that I did a addition to the tcaa for this customer. It's actually one website where they actually do editorial stuff that's most of the time not true for the customers. I know, I know. And they get their articles as Word documents and need to copy and paste them in. And we need to extract footnotes and reference to the footnotes and stuff Oh, it's so two extra pausing. And I didn't finish the pattern right now. But for me, it was actually cool again, to work with the new forementioned tcaa. And just add a new button besides the body text, which opens custom back end part where you can paste the Word document, and we will do the parsing and stuff like that. Ah, so nothing cool for a while, maybe but school for me, actually, because I'm digging into new stuff again, right. And that's always cool to learn. What can the system do for you?

Jeffrey A. McGuire  13:50
You're helping the poor people who have to work in Microsoft Word every day. Yeah,

Daniel Siepmann  13:55
I don't know, if they are using that. But I guess there are still some companies where Microsoft is still setting to go. So

Jeffrey A. McGuire  14:04
what's going on? What format? Is that stuff then? Is it you're dealing with XML in the background?

Daniel Siepmann  14:09
I don't know yet. Because I don't have the examples. Oh, it just integrated the back end part. And now waiting for the example. So I guess next week, I will figure it out. Hopefully. Okay.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  14:23
Are you gonna open source that as an extension? Well,

Daniel Siepmann  14:25
I'm not the big fan of providing extensions for every single stuff. I'm totally open for writing the code and provide blog posts. Okay, we did that and just contact us or here's a good example. But if you provide an extension, at least my opinion, you need to think about it like a product. Yeah. And I'm sure you're from open strategy partners. do marketing know what that means. So you need to think okay, what should be part of the product? What's the vision for the product? What should you do in the future and stuff like that? Who was going to use this product and all those kind of things? So you would need to do some extra work if you don't think okay, I will just outsource it. And that's it.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  15:09
Right? It's actually irresponsible, right? Yes. Some people think that you just set the code free and magic happens. And it's all okay. But it's a huge responsibility you, you need to make sure it's secure. You need to be responsive to people's requests, whether or not you want to integrate them, and you have to provide updates, and you have to track the versions as they go. I think that's a really interesting, responsible approach that you're taking, because you are happy to show people how you did it and give them your code and talk with them about it. And that's enough for them to go and build it. But I think you're also taking care of yourself. And this is a big topic in 2020, and not taking on the burden of maintaining five or 10 or 50. extensions, and then that will get in the way of you doing your cool new project every month. Right? Yes,

Daniel Siepmann  15:57
exactly. I always try to be responsible for the things I want to be responsible for. Nothing more, nothing less. So every time someone approached me and asked, Can you do that? I always try to find the border, what I'm responsible for. And as I want to do it or not, so that I guess that's if you want to be professional, that's part of your job, because otherwise you're not professional. If you say, Yeah, I will do it. And then the customer approach you and say, Yeah, well, that's a new TYPO3 version, how do we proceed into say, I don't care, you just paid me and I'm done. So that's it. So that's not professional in my

Jeffrey A. McGuire  16:36
view. On the other hand, it's very good. Whether you're maintaining a system, or whether you're maintaining a client relationship, if you set the scope and the expectations, and you learn to say no, which I find really hard, because at some point, maybe you take on too much, and then you don't, then you don't live up to the things that you that you think you should, right. I was fascinated by the idea that as an intern, or a junior developer, whatever, at some point, you got to know some of the TCPA. And then all of a sudden, you were the expert, and then people started coming to you. And you said that that started you on a path of just diving deeper and deeper. If I'm looking to become an expert, or I want to be better at my development job, what should I do?

Daniel Siepmann  17:17
I guess the most important thing, as always, when you want to become better at something, you need some passion, and just invest time and just get your hands dirty, and give it a shot, and try things out. And it doesn't matter if it's working or not. Because most of the time, we will learn more from your failures. For example, let's take TYPO3, and you have a new idea and build something and once you need to update to see, okay, that won't work out, we can update that thing, then you have learned one important thing, okay, it won't work that way. So you won't repeat this failure. And if you do something else, and that's just working with, probably just repeat and don't get the opportunity to improve. So Oh, something that's very important. That is, in my opinion, always question what you did what you did last time and how you solve an issue last time? And question, how would I do it this time? Would I repeat it, like last time was something new out there, that might be a better solution right now. And especially if you are working this TYPO3 or anything in the it, there are new versions out with new features, and probably there's a better way now. So just doing the same over and over again, that's what computers are made for. And not humans, if I can do it the same way more than once, and I could program create a program that's doing the job,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  18:44
like then you automate it.

Daniel Siepmann  18:45
Yeah, that's what computers are made for him. And it's also the same with extensions, I guess, if we would create extensions for our customers that suffer generic issue, then, of course, we would put them on GitHub or somewhere else, because everyone could reuse them for this scope, as you mentioned, which would be very tiny. But most of the times they are just very specific to the customer and some business logic of the customer, which isn't true for someone else. So

Jeffrey A. McGuire  19:17
but some people who are very, very involved in TYPO3 and and using it for client projects, say that at this stage in its development, the TYPO3 core is essentially quote unquote, feature complete, right? Tell me what you think of this statement. I think that means that for a large number of client projects, the core itself with some configuration is going to get you a very, very, very close to being able to do a full project. And then ideally, all of those generic functionalities that you just mentioned, all of those little things are already going to be there. And if it's not, you probably want to fix it in core and whatever is left for you to do is then actually the custom specific thing that a client needs which is Hopefully more interesting to do but also not necessarily useful for hundreds of other projects, right? Yes,

Daniel Siepmann  20:05
yes, exactly. I felt this person from a th Hi, Bob back, I guess two or three years ago at two point I came on wall. And I remember that young violent was in the room and say, Whoa, whoa, wait. We get no more updates because it does nothing more nothing left to do and stuff like that. And Mateos said, Yeah. Okay, wait a moment. That means right now we have no feature left we need to implement that doesn't mean that in one or two years, there are new requirements or technologies we need to implement. And we can see Okay, we got a new password forgotten feature and fluid emails, new adoption of piece of standards and stuff like that. So and there will be a version 11 with a new features and stuff like that. But exactly, as you mentioned, if there's something generic missing TYPO3, and I guess they asked two things. And I guess some of those things are too complex to just trade one patch and ready to go. Because they are more conception issues. How do you want to solve that? How does it fit into TYPO3 stuff like that? Everything is exactly like you've said,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  21:20
So you mentioned back in 2012 2013, you started off writing generic PHP functionality that somebody else had to then go and integrate into TYPO3 installations. Wonder if you can compare TYPO3 4.7 ish to TYPO3 10 ish, because for example, TYPO3 10 is compliant with the vast majority of the PSR standards.

Daniel Siepmann  21:44
Well, yeah, that are at least four different words. Words, I guess, because I've evolved and TYPO3 evolved. That's actually true words that are compared with the old states. Of course, I don't write the same code as back in 2000. And my knowledge, increase all those kinds of things. We can even compare TYPO3 10 to version nine. And I tried to work with customers only with as a recent HTS, which is version 10. Because otherwise, I always have to deal with Okay, was this feature already in in version nine? How can I write the code so it's easier to migrate once we update to version 10? and stuff like that? The one project I've talked about beforehand, we have started at the beginning of the year when version 10 wasn't out yet. And we started with version nine, of course, and I've told our customer, okay, let's just switch to version 10. Right now, because the breaking stuff is through and we only have one extension dependency, which was solo, and we've already talked with them says already abroad, just give it a try. And if it's okay, let's use version 10. Because otherwise, all the things I'm doing right now we need to update later on. And I can't use other new features, like out of mentions a piece of Lexus events, for example, and stuff like that. And the new dependency injection, which came with version 10. And all those kinds of things. And especially the dependency injection was something I already knew from TYPO3 flow, yes. And it was just okay. That's how it should be, I can write my code and just say, Okay, let's switch implementation for this project on this scenario. And finally, I can write my code and don't need to Okay, let's give me the factory. And now let's create me as COVID. I just can see, okay, I need a crow Buddha, and everything else is just configuration. Yeah. And that's one of the strengths of TYPO3 was TypeScript and stuff like that to have the generic implementation and a specific configuration. And that's how it should be,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  23:51
would you say, the conversation with your client about look TYPO3 LTS is running, and it's got a few more years of support, and it's fine. But I would rather jump in when we're at a beta release of version 10. Because it's the newest. I'm wondering about the risk of using an early version, versus the project will be cheaper and lasts longer because you're starting on the on the newest version already, like risk versus longevity versus stability, kind of what are they here when you talk with him about that?

Daniel Siepmann  24:26
The first thing is our customers are thought to have three agencies Oh, differently level than us some inches of who doesn't even understand or know what you're talking about, I guess mostly just makes a decision and say, we are using the latest in the cosmos. Yeah, that sounds okay. And yes,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  24:45
and shiny.

Daniel Siepmann  24:46
Yeah. And I guess I wouldn't even it might depend on the customer. But I guess for most normal customers, I wouldn't even go into such detail and just say okay, we will you trust us. We do our job and you don't trust us anymore. Let's talk about the reasons and maybe you need an agency. And we are doing the decisions because it's the reason why he has an agency and doesn't do stuff like that on its own.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  25:14
So I can I can accept all of that. Except I'm wondering about the support cycle. Because if I take version nine now I'm and I buy the the extended long term support phase at the end, without looking at the calendar. Now I've got three ish years of support to three years of support in TYPO3, nine, but I've got six year window, right, like three years for free still with TYPO3 10 and and then another two, couple of three years if I buy the paid option. So isn't that still an argument for a quote unquote,

Daniel Siepmann  25:51
customer? Also Mateus hava was the first one who introduced me into such path because I always was employed at companies and never was part of source decisions.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  26:01
You run a company that you have.

Daniel Siepmann  26:05
Yeah. And yeah, I'm totally in that it's part when you're selling a website, you also need we have talked about the constraints and scopes and sets, how long should the website last? And when do we plan to update? Do we need an update? All those kinds of things, and Mateus told us that's part of your job as agencies, you're selling a product. And you can see, we've made your website and we are done. That's what our saw mentioned, we are talking about what means if you are being a professional, and I always think you're entering a relationship with a customer, it's not okay, you want to get one thing. And that's it. And we are over, it's always more easy for both sides, if you know, okay, whenever I have an issue with my website, I know I can call them. And for an agency, it's always nice, okay, we know our customers love us. And we know if they need something, they will contact us and not someone else and stuff like that. And therefore, if you are getting to a new website, you always need to talk Okay, how long should it last? Is it for one fail, then we don't need to talk about updates and stuff like that. If it's your company website, and you can your company should last more than six years. Then, of course, you might think about updates and stuff like that. And then all those things should already be part when planning the project upfront. For sure.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  27:24
What I think I hear underneath that, though, is that you're saying that, in the end, it's not the technical details that matter. It's building trust between you and that client, and then you're maybe free to do the right thing for them.

Daniel Siepmann  27:38
Yeah, if you are, if something's broken your house, and like me, you can fix it yourself, because your mods actually guy and not the craftsmen, then I also need to trust in what they are doing. Because they also use terms I don't understand use tools I haven't seen before. And I just need to trust that I can live in the same house for 10 years. So

Jeffrey A. McGuire  28:04
I had a tradesman, a hunter vyatka in my place last night. And he was telling me about you know, now to be compliant with the building codes for bathrooms, you have to do this and this with this plastic stuff. And as you know, and I'm just realizing like, actually, when we tell people about stuff, it's just like, if the guy would say, Well, I have to use the number seven hammer now and I'm only allowed to use the number 29 left handed nails because of NDB. Like, right,

Daniel Siepmann  28:35
exactly. Yeah, whatever you say sounds cool. Okay, you know what you're doing? Okay.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  28:42
I get a nice bathroom at the end. Okay, that's a nice analogy, though. I've never thought of it in those terms before. I'm going to remember that one. Definitely. Because it sounds it makes perfect sense. What is your favorite feature of TYPO3?

Daniel Siepmann  28:55
I would say is as a back end, comes packed by TYPO3 itself together with CTC. So I just need to write some lines of configuration and allow everyone else to put in the content. I guess that's actually one of the biggest features.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  29:12
I also in that moment when you've got a backend running in typo. Three. I was incredibly impressed when I learned about it at the time that you can basically plan and design and put content into your site, even though it doesn't have a front end right. The separation of concerns is is that is a nice design feature. What should everyone know about TYPO3 CMS

Daniel Siepmann  29:33
extra that it's open source, which already means there are many different things behind it. Like you can always have a view in the code. If you don't understand something right behaves like it does, stuff like that. It also means that you get it for free, of course, and that you can participate and adjusted to your needs and that it's open source. It's actually one of the biggest important parts Is Not everyone gets what open source actually means. Should be some more marketing.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  30:07
Do you think this still needs this? This still needs education around that out of your marketplace?

Daniel Siepmann  30:12
I think so. Because even in TYPO3 in when you have your house now, in some camps he like in federal he talked about what does it actually mean free like and they always use like free in free speech not in freebie or something like that. So even Well, you always need to educate What does open rates actually mean? Like you already said, when you open source something it doesn't mean he has a coach, I'm off.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  30:40
Yeah, there's way more. There's another side to that, that you could work into your your conversations as well, with your customers, you should I feel you should never tell them, Hey, this is free. Because then you're setting a really difficult expectation when you turn around and say, Oh, yeah, and this project is gonna cost you 10,000 euros, 100,000 euros, whatever it is right? Like, and they said, I thought it was free, right. And there was a saying there was a saying floating around for a while. Open source is free as in puppy. When you get it, you still have to feed it and take care of it and take it for walks and stuff. Right? That's not so free as in beer free as in speech free as in puppet. Yeah.

Daniel Siepmann  31:22
That's nice. But before,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  31:25
I guess it sounds like I could repackage some of my old open source business pitch kind of sounds like it's still relevant, which is good for me, because I could give that talk pretty much every day. On this podcast. Every time I'm trying to do a thing called the suggested guest. Who is it that you think I should talk with on the podcast,

Daniel Siepmann  31:44
I would recommend my old boss, which is fun and cool. Also located I mentioned laptop, because he's also a professional, and is also he's just a developer. He is not a web developer. Our top three are some snips that we also work with several three way before I was introduced, he worked with flow NEOs, which was their own way now, and work with Python, and so many other things. So I he's also a Linux guy and involved in so many different things. So I guess, if I should name one person who is in parallel and knows a broad range of activities, I would suggest him,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  32:23
okay, so I'm talking with him. He's also something he's a technical business person, I think

Daniel Siepmann  32:29
he's a freelancer. So running his own business for himself, also, more or less a back end developer, but interested in all kinds of things. So he also knows the front end stuff, but he is not a designer or something like that. Okay,

Jeffrey A. McGuire  32:41
it sounds like interesting conversation with him might be to put TYPO3 in the context of all the other things that he that he knows about. And uses as a, as an all rounder, that's pretty cool. I think there's a really nice confluence of a lot of the things that we've been talking about so far. And that is, we could really use more people who know about TYPO3, there are a lot of people in the world who want IP jobs. And it's a great way to help people in the world and move, move up and provide for your family and so on. Also, what we haven't talked about so much today is I think that TYPO3 is in 2020 is not as well known as it is good. I think it's a highly professionalized system that's used for really, really successful, big, interesting web projects. And outside of Central Europe, it's not as well known as other stuff. And since I've become actively involved in the community, again, which goes back about four ish years. Now, I've touched on it many times over the years. But in the last three or four years, I really thought it's time to sort of spread the world and tell more people about it. And I had the real privilege to help organize the first TYPO3 book that's been done in 10 years, that's coming out soon. And your name is all over that because you were extremely helpful providing information and quotes and helpful tips and so on. So first of all, thank you for that contribution. And I think it backs up everything that you were saying about wanting to help people but talk about who contacted you What were those conversations like also the, you know, the the marketing or growth potential for the community around the book.

Daniel Siepmann  34:23
Yes, you said, I also think that TYPO3 is not as known as it should be. And I don't know how it how it is nowadays, but when I've started books were more important than the internet. So if you want to learn new technology, you went into the bookstore and bought the book and not sure if that's still valid today, but I guess still many people out there prefer books, maybe an ebook or printed version over something someone wrote on the internet was it's promoted in the internet or something like that. And I also thinks that books have a different meaning. Like if you're doing a book, not sure how it's nowadays with MSN printing and stuff like that, people that I know so think, okay, if you're doing a book, you need someone who thinks that it's a good idea to publish the book, and the book and stuff like that. So it's different if you do a website, which not everyone can do, or if you create a book and publish that book. And as far as I know, the book already talks quite some time to create a series of learning experiences. And so I think it's something very different to a blog post or serious or website for promoting things. And it's way more serious than anything else you can find. Also, I don't know how people read books, but I guess they are in a different mood than when they have a tablet or laptop or something. That's exactly. So as you can work with a book, at least if it's printed, you can mark off things and stuff like that, and also ebook, I guess, software that supports you in doing such things. And with websites. Yeah, they are extensions for browsers. But I guess most people just don't think about editing websites to mark important parts for them and stuff like that. So

Jeffrey A. McGuire  36:25
it doesn't have the same permanence does it? I mean, it's an older technology. And it's a sort of a proven information density that we understand pretty well as humans, I hadn't thought of all the aspects of what you were saying before, we, indeed, a couple of years ago, thought it would be a good idea to do the book, especially at setting like a marker saying, This project is here and good. And you should have a look at it. And the association really wants to use it as a marketing tool. And we can send books to people and they can and we can give away ebooks and so on. And we got to work. And we had some it's a team effort here. And it's a team effort with many community members, including you. So we collected a lot of contributions. And we thought about how to go about it. And one of my colleagues and also co author on the book, Heather McNally is a pedagogue as a trained educator. And so she thought a lot about structure and learning paths. And the concept came together. And we were able to convince a press, which is a reputable tech publisher, you know, so we actually had to go and say, here's a CMS that you haven't really heard of, but it's got this community, and it's got all these sites, and it's got all this potential. And we've convinced them that they would sell enough books to make it worth their while. Right. And then they have a really, it's quite a refined process. And it's quite, it's been great working with them. And then they have a couple of smart tricks along the way. They said, obviously, we don't have TYPO3 people in house here, but it needs to be technically accurate. Who in your community could be technical editors, and then we arranged for Johan and Kai Toba to be the technical reviewers, but they weren't exactly they weren't working for us. They were working for a press directly. And then like asking the tough questions and stuff, it all came together pretty well. If I ever do it again, I know a bunch more now. And I do organize things a little differently. But yeah, we're really, really hopeful that the result can make a difference. And doing this in partnership with the association. Our goal is is to get the word out about the project. So like I said, there's a bunch of sort of best practices and examples and stuff, ladies and gentlemen, contributed by this guy on your screen here now. Daniel diekman. And so thank you so much for that. That was a really, really generous of you. Hopefully, that hopefully we can make a difference to I have been having a ton of fun. I think you've you've said some really, really wise, insightful things. I'm really, really grateful that you took the time to talk with me, the most important question of the podcast now is, pays or cash.

Daniel Siepmann  39:05
In the end, I'm not even a PR person. I like the taste of beer. Okay, that makes it be a limb or something like

Jeffrey A. McGuire  39:15
very, that's a very that's a very diplomatic, that's a very diplomatic answer. And for those of you who are not in Germany, or not in our region of Germany, fun facts about Germany. cologne is a city of a million people. It's the fourth largest city in Germany and cologne has its own beer style that nobody makes anywhere else. And by law can only be brewed inside the city of Cologne and it's called coach and it is clearly and this is a completely non controversial statement. It is clearly the best beer there is. Now that say to code or is not even be 40 kilometers down the road. in Dusseldorf where the TYPO3 g mbh company is, and all the agencies were talking about before they brew a completely unique beer that's only brewed and dusted off called

Daniel Siepmann  40:10
ult. Yeah, that's fine only in the city. That and then retune.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  40:17
Yeah. And then as soon as you go north or east, outside of Cologne and Dusseldorf you rapidly hit areas where pills is really popular. So this is actually a highly a highly divisive conversation. But, uh, you know, your culture in Germany is very, very important. So I thought it was incredibly diplomatic of you just to say, Oh, hey, no, I don't do beer. So then I Oh, it's a nice way to not answer.

Daniel Siepmann  40:48
Yeah, but if you want a keen answer between doesn't offer colognes and I would always opt for cologne except for the soccer team, then. It's always dusted off. And of course, not Cologne, because I'm from mentoring, and soccer, and mostly love on cologne that doesn't fit.

Jeffrey A. McGuire  41:05
Like, hey, it's been great. It's been great chatting, and I hope we can see each other in person sometime. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks again, Daniel. Thanks for your interest. Talk to you soon. Thanks to the TYPO3 Association for sponsoring this podcast. Thank you, b 13, and Stephanie quarter for our logo. Now see, beaucoup de como TYPO3. developer and musician x tall, the noun for our theme music. Thanks again to today's guest. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe in the podcast app of your choice and share application that TYPO3 community podcast with your friends and colleagues. If you didn't like it, please share it with your enemies. Would you like to play along and suggest a guest for the podcast? Do you have questions or comments? reach out to us on Twitter at TYPO3 podcast. You can find show notes, links and more information in our posts on TYPO3.org. Remember, open source software would not be what it is without you. Thank you all for your contributions