How about allowing b"foo" in 5.3 (so people can start migrating their
code early) and making unicode strings default in PHP7? :D
David
Am 23.01.2008 um 22:30 schrieb Andi Gutmans:
Hi Rasmus, Chris,
I agree with you which is why I suggested to not have a switch but to
make the default string binary and require u"foo" for Unicode strings.
It supports the existing community incl. hosters and as Chris and you
pointed out, the broad community of non-"high class" developers to who
we owe PHP's success.
As you rightfully pointed out the broader world isn't ready for it yet
and we have to evolve at the same pace. I think that going down that
route incrementally is exactly what's going to support that need.
Let's face it, the people who are struggling today will have an
immense
relief when they get native Unicode capabilities in PHP 6 including a
large amount of ICUs functionality. The u"foo" isn't what's going to
take that away and PHP 6 will likely lead the pack in many regards
when
it comes to Unicode support. For the people who don't care today and
will have to care tomorrow, they get to move to PHP 6 without much
pain,
they continue to benefit from their existing code and performance
characteristics, and as they slowly evolve and find out that they do
need to deal with it, it's there and readily available to them.
Andi
-----Original Message-----
From: Rasmus Lerdorf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 11:29 AM
To: Chris Stockton
Cc: php-dev
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] why we must get rid of unicode.semantics
switch
ASAP
I don't disagree with this, and that is actually why I insisted on
having the unicode-semantics switch from the early days of the
Unicode
discussions, so you can blame me, again, if you consider it a bad
design
decision.
My take on it was that just about all ISPs would run with Unicode
semantics off and that the Unicode semantics on mode was more geared
for
large standalone applications and sites that wanted the luxury of
working natively in their chosen character set without needing to
always
jump through hoops.
If we get rid of the switch, then I agree that we can't make the
default
string IS_UNICODE. We would be crippling the implementation and
taking
a step backwards in terms of leading the way in Unicode adoption.
The
longterm goal for just about everyone has got to be a "Unicode
everywhere" approach. It used to be that the Web was primarily a
Western single-byte charset phenomena, but that hasn't been the case
for
years. All major applications out there have implemented various
hacks
to deal with these issues, some with more success than others.
This is what PHP does. We take common Web development pains and try
to
reduce them. Think back to the pains of XML parsing in PHP 3 and
even
in PHP 4 compared to today.
Ultimately we need to get to Unicode everywhere, and the Unicode
semantics switch was an acknowledgement that the world isn't quite
ready
for that yet. But it sounds like the world isn't ready for the
switch
either. Without it, I am afraid we will never get there, and that
may
just be something we have to live with.
-Rasmus
Chris Stockton wrote:
I partially agree, I have been watching this discussion and it's
funny
how we have such a class of high end developers saying to break old
PHP code. But, the majority of the success of PHP is not due to this
small class of high end developers, it's due to it's availability in
a
shared hosting environment, and the ease of use for beginners, and
the
oodles of fairly poor quality code that is easy to copy and paste
onto
peoples websites.
Look at the adoption of php4, many webhosts haven't even updated to
PHP5 completely due to things like register_globals and small
backwards compatibility breakage. The list of problems is small and
correctable, if you give system engineers at all of these hosting
companies the choice of A. Upgrade to php6 and drive support calls
through the roof, or B. Stay at PHP4/5 for eternity until a more
(insert your complaints / rants here) language comes along to
dethrone
PHP.
Problem is, PHP has been built to great success based on it's early
foundation, but now a group of high class developers want it to be
more then PHP was built onto. You will sacrifice it's success if
backwards compatibility is not just, broke, but obliterated. Why
change PHP's philosophy? Keep it easy for the new user, keep it
successful, and make me work a little more when I want to implement
my
"high class" development methodologies. I don't mind, I do it
already.
I write this as a "high class" developer.
-1
-Chris
On Jan 22, 2008 7:32 PM, Richard Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Mon, January 21, 2008 8:38 am, Antony Dovgal wrote:
6 reasons why we must to get rid of The Switch ASAP
----------------------------------------------------
I was +1...
Until folks started posting that old PHP scripts won't run as-is in
PHP 6?...
That's just daft...
When my webhost upgrades to PHP 6, I need all my old scripts to
just
keep on chugging away, as much as possible...
I really think we're stuck with the default "string" being an
old-school binary string, unless you want to lose a LOT of users in
a
hurry, or have PHP 5 stick around forever and ever.
--
Some people have a "gift" link here.
Know what I want?
I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist.
http://cdbaby.com/from/lynch
Yeah, I get a buck. So?
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