Hi Everyone, So I threw this idea out there, then I sat down and tried to come up with questions I'd want answered. There's a bunch, those questions are easy. Then I tried to focus my questions, I wanted questions that could possibly affect or guide the development of PHP as a language. That got much harder. Recognizing that much of how PHP advances is "scratch the itch" makes it harder still.
Here I've got a few questions, as well as my thinking behind them: (I think this question is useful to group responses, we might see radically different responses from people deploying to a few servers versus hundreds) How many servers do you deploy code to 1 2-5 5-20 20-100 100+ (I'm not sure how this should steer PHP, except possibly trying to devote more resources to package maintainers if they're a large chunk of our user base) How do you install PHP on your production machines - Package (RPM, DEV) - Install from source - Executable from php.net (windows) (I'm not sure how this answer steers PHP as a language, but it might be useful for trends over time?) What server do you use in production: - Apache - IIS - nginx (How quickly are these new features being picked up in the language as a whole) Which of the following are you using today: - Namespaces - Closures - [other stuff] (Where are people, also useful for grouping results) What version of PHP are you using in Production -- (what motivates people to upgrade?) When do you upgrade to a new release of php e.g. 5.3 -> 5.4 - As soon as released - wait for the x.1 release - Once our OpCode cache supports it - When previous version hits EOL - When a new feature warrants the upgrade - When my Framework (Zend/Symfony/cake) or Software (Wordpress, Gallery, etc) requires it (This, I think, is the biggest question in the survey) Please rank the following in order of importance to you: - New language features - Language Speed - Language stability - Backwards compatibility between releases (I think this is useful in terms of rating priorities. If everyone uses a big framework, then we should temper their opinions against those of the framework authors/maintainers) Do you use any of the following frameworks (check all that apply) - Zend Framework - Symphony - Cake - Code Igniter - ... (Can we convince people with C to help out in the language? Send just PHP developers to work on tests? Documentation?) What other languages do you know: - C - C++ - Perl - Python - Ruby I think you can see that I was challenged by a lot of the questions to answer how it might affect the future of PHP. Some other questions to pull apart classes of responses might be helpful (are you a: hosting provider, development agency, deploying your own corporate code, etc.) but I'm really having trouble coming up with good questions that I think could affect things. Without those I'm not sure how useful the survey is to people on this list. paul On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 5:38 AM, Lester Caine <les...@lsces.co.uk> wrote: > Pierre Joye wrote: > >> hi, >> >> On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Lester Caine <les...@lsces.co.uk> wrote: >> >> I was in a van with my son-in-law yesterday and we got around to >>> discussing >>> websites and the like. I run his sites, but HE uses Joomla, so although >>> it's >>> PHP he has no interest in the language as such as long as Joomla works. >>> So >>> this morning I though 'What ARE people using with PHP?" expecting to see >>> a >>> large chunk of the 90 odd % of websites actually using PHP to be using >>> something to hide that, and got something of a surprise ... >>> http://w3techs.com/**technologies/history_overview/** >>> content_management/all<http://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/all> >>> makes interesting reading, and so while I was anticipating that a large >>> chunk of users would be excluded from 'PHP' related questions, the >>> reverse >>> seems to be the truth? >>> >> >> We have discussed that hundred of times in the past. However let me >> try to compare with other mainstream products, in an understandable >> way: >> >> a company A delivers materials to a cell manufacturer > The >> manufacturer sells ready to be used cells to end users. End users do >> not care if the cell use a chip from Company A or B as long as it >> works. >> >> the manufacturer reports needs&feedback to the company A, based on its >> customers feedback and needs >> >> PHP is the company A, Joomla/Wordpress&co are the cell manufacturers. >> > > But the point is that apart perhaps for Wordpress, the 'cell > manufacturers' are possibly only a very small percentage of the PHP user > base? The piece of information we are missing is the split of users between > 'cell manufacturer' type users and those that are using PHP direct? What > part of the 68% of people 'not using a cms system' are using some other > 'cell manufacturer' and what part are just using PHP ... but even then, > where a 'cell manufacturer' is no longer around, the end user needs help > from PHP to port their website ... which is were a number of my own > customers are trapped. > > > -- > Lester Caine - G8HFL > ----------------------------- > Contact - > http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=**contact<http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact> > L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk > EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ > Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk > Rainbow Digital Media - > http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.**uk<http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk> > > -- > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > -- Paul Reinheimer Zend Certified Engineer
