On 7/18/07, Zeev Suraski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Pierre, I wanted to send my 2c even though I'm not really involved in internals@ any longer - because in reality it doesn't really have much to do with such decisions. internals@ makes decisions that effect the entire PHP userbase. We all need to remember that the people on this mailing list are not close to something that represents the userbase. We do have some very opinionated people on this list, some of them with a lot of commit-karma - which are not very open to feedback from regular users. I'm not saying I represent the PHP userbase, and I don't think Andi is saying this either - but both of us try to take the end user's view when we think about stuff like this, as opposed as the internals@ PHP developer view. I would go as far as saying that I think we do it (as well as some others, like Rasmus) more so than some others on this list. For that reason I suspect that if you moved the discussion to, say, php-general - you'd see a much more balanced view of the world. Unfortunately it will probably not be very manageable. Something more practical would be trying to think about things from the end users perspective as opposed to our perspective as the developers and maintainers of the language. Finally, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, we always need to remember that BC breakage accumulates, and it's not binary. Every cleanup we do in PHP 6 will further slow migration, and as Andi pointed out a few days ago, things don't look too well as it is. As for ereg - especially in light of the discontinuation of PHP 4 we shouldn't even consider removing it in PHP 5. I agree with Andi that I'm not sure it's a good idea for PHP 6 either, but I'm not sure it isn't either. As long as it's easy enough to turn it back on (i.e. have it bundled but disabled) I think it's not unreasonable.
My answer to Andi was not only about ereg but php6 in general (the unicode flag being a much more important problem that ereg, for example). I fully agree with you. Each individual here does not represent the user base but only a relative small part. However, my problem here is not about that but about the respect of our voices. It is understandable that you think to have a brighter customers base, it is not necessary the case. not historically and not practically. Conferences attendees are also a very small part of our users. All in all, internals developers, with their customers, coworkers or users (Ez, PEAR, linux package maintainers, etc.) do represent what I consider as a good representation of what our users are or like to have. About the migration path, we should not forget our PHP5 lessons. All Andi is trying to do was what was done with PHP5. Many cleanups have not been done for the sake of BC breaks and migration troubles. We know now that it does not matter. Users migrate when they have to or need to not just for the fun of it. Finally, you are right to say that an opinion has little to do with the commit karma. Cheers, --Pierre -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
