From Pierre
Playing off base. What I proposed you is to help us to get your
software continue to run smoothly with PHP, while keeping the windows
support. In the end you may even get a faster version on windows, but
I suppose you don't care about that (poor customers ;) .
This I think is part of the current battle - and it is a battle - between
those of us who use and spend a lot of our time SUPPORTING PHP use in the field.
I came to PHP when PHP5 was in late beta, with RC's just coming out, and I
actually release my first applications in early 2004 USING a late RC for the
simple fact that I THOUGHT at the time it was going to be the way forward. I
knew there was still a 'problem' with Unicode in PHP5 but the discussion even
then was that this would be addressed in PHP6 - something that was then nailed
down at that meeting in Paris in November 2005?
Did I make the right choice going to PHP5 early? Well in hindsight probably
not, because on the projects that I contribute to I have been - in my mind -
wasting time fixing problems introduced by 'improvements' to PHP4 ever since.
Since most USERS have never been convinced of the advantages of PHP5, until
the plug was finally pulled on PHP4. I wish that PHP4 had been put into a
security fixes only mode a year or so earlier, so we could have nailed down
applications that work with the final release and got on to actually USING the
improvements in PHP5 in the field. OK some projects who had a lot more
developers split their projects and started PHP4 and PHP5 versions, but I
obviously back the wrong horses :( Perhaps Interbase/Firebird is the same
wrong decision, but I've been using that since the early 90's - long before
web based working became the norm.
Do my CUSTOMERS need a new tidied version of Array - NO - they have no idea
what goes on under the cover. They all have a job to do and in many cases THAT
has not changed in the last 20 years. Yes HOW they do it has changed, but
essentially things like 'write a letter' are not using anything that was not
available and perfectly functional 20 years ago. They have gained nothing by
the cost of several upgrades to windows. In fact NOW they may not even be
using a word processor at all, with simple form letters generated in web based
applications. The very applications PHP is providing so nicely.
None of my paying customers actually need Unicode, simple Ascii English is
fine for them. The main reason I 'would like' to get away from the mess of
code tables and character conversions is for the non-paying people who use the
international projects that I help to develop. I have spent a lot of time
making those projects compatible with all of the problems that changes to PHP4
and 5 have thrown at me and now I'd like to pin down a build of PHP5 that I
can consider stable, get into security only mode, and get on to a version of
PHP that is a simple flat field for multi-lingual text.
Am I letting my customers down - *NO* - we are developing a number of
enhancements to what they *DO* with their systems, while battling to fix the
problems of 'improvements' to OS, Browsers, and even the Database engine. Yes,
this compulsive requirement to keep changing things is even causing problems
in the Firebird camp!
Can I simply bury my head in the sand and ignore the newer versions of PHP5.3
- NO - because users of the projects I'm involved with will be complaining
that something does not work. Heck we are getting bug reports for *PHP6* !!!
To me open source is about cooperation. We all contribute what we can to the
melting pot. Personally I spent two years as treasurer of the Firebird
Foundation and only stepped down because a change in workload :( Windows does
not make for an 'open' development process although I do understand that the
major block of having to BUY a M$ compiler has been removed? If I had my way,
I would only support Linux servers, and some of my 'windows only' customers
are now ASKING for Linux when we need to upgrade server hardware!
Do I have time to help develop PHP on Windows - NO. Would I find time if key
parts are dropped - probably not. I had to find time when Borland announced
that Interbase was being killed off in 1998. I had ten years of time invested
in the products using it. I learnt one lesson, and 95% of what I am now doing
is not dependant on product that someone else can wipe out. The current
problem is the 5% that is and that code base is over 15 years old! It still
does what the customers want perfectly so they are unwilling to change it, and
I don't have time to do more than recompile things every time windows moves
the goal posts.
CURRENTLY - what is actually WRONG in PHP5?
Look at the minutes of the 'PHP6' meeting
http://www.php.net/~derick/meeting-notes.html - what has actually been
addressed in coming up to 3 years?
Can we answer point 1.1 yet - is the current logjam brought about by requiring
an OFF switch - if PHP6 is unicode only internally can we move it forward, and
keep PHP5 as the none unicode branch?
Can't we learn from the 'mistakes' of PHP4 or are we still going to be waiting
for PHP6 in another 3 years.
--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php
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