PHP-based software, installing a PECL extension is not an option. If I cannot be sure that phar works on my client's system, I cannot use it to deploy software.
Unless your clients immediately upgrade to php 5.3 this is the case anyway for some time (probably measured in years).
Uploading a phar file, then pointing your browser to it and running a PHP-based self-extracting installer similar to the Windows installers we know would make installing PHP software way more end-user-compatible.
If it's the installer question you could do it in a number of other ways, but phar way is OK too. It would be one thing to use phar-like format as a packaging format used as base for installers (akin to .msi, .rpm, etc) - and as I understand, it is achievable even without having phar extension with the same success (performance is not really a thing for installer). However, running live app from inside phar is entirely different thing.
IMHO phar should be part of the PHP code, so that developers can rely on it as a means of PHP software deployment that certainly works on all systems, rather than another option.
That's exactly what I am saying - that in my opinion such format is not the best thing PHP software developers could (or should) rely on in many scenarios. Putting something in PHP source is a form of endorsement, and I think it should be carefully considered if it's ready for all scenarios before we do that.
-- Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Products Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.zend.com/ -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
