Hello Zeev,
Zeev Suraski wrote:
>
> At 23:02 26-08-01, Manuel Lemos wrote:
> >I don't think we have the same understanding of what is marketing. For
> >me, marketing is being proactive in terms of promoting something before
> >the potential market. Seeing people advocating PHP or analysts covering
> >PHP here and there is not proactive at all. It is a result of the
> >evolution of PHP capabilities, but it was not something that was
> >especifically planned.
>
> Well, that's not quite true. The analysts that are beginning to show
> interest are a result of efforts being made in certain companies. As for
> advocating, I specifically mentioned companies and not people, which is
> what makes it pro-active. I think our definitions for marketing are quite
> similar :)
If when you mean pro-active you mean that's intentional and is all part
of a plan,
then we agree. If you acted somehow to promote PHP and got some
unexpected results
(good or bad) that is still marketing although not pro-active.
> > > At any rate, suggestions will be welcome. I've seen the Web Developer Ring
> > > you suggested, and I think it's worth thinking (the reason I'm not going
> > > wild with enthusiasm is that I think it also has drawbacks, not only
> > > advantages).
> >
> >I don't know what drawbacks do you see, but let's discuss it openly.
>
> Well, not all of the sites are of the same quality and enjoy the same
> maintenance level. Such sites may have a good audience and may be a good
> service, but they won't necessarily do a good job at presenting PHP. They
> may (will) also overlap in content, which would also not look very
> professional either.
If you are going to descriminate sites based on subjective criteria,
like matters of taste or points of view that vary greatly from person to
person, that is bad because you will certainly leave out contributions
that could help greatly PHP and in the end yourself.
It would certainly would make you look arrogant if you get to be picky
as if including some sites and not others you would be doing somebody
else a favor when the promotion that PHP gets from the sites will always
benefit you direct or indirectly.
If I were you I certainly would not rule out sites with content that
overlaps others. Why not accept all sites that provide PHP articles? One
site may not be as good or as complete as other today, but they may
improve over time enough to be technically better than others that you
picked before. What would you do then? Accept what you refused before
and then discard what you accepted before? Doesn't seem to be a good
idea.
Anyway, in a Web ring banner you only promote a site at each banner
view. I don't see the problem of rotating banners of overlapped content.
> Things like that are usually not that simple, or in other words, they're
> easier said than done. If done sloppily, they can have a negative
> effect. And doing them correctly requires substantial efforts.
You sound bureacratic. You should feel honoured by the extra promotion
that all the PHP content sites give you because your business depends on
PHP acceptance in the market. Why make it hard for sites that are
willing to help you in the end?
I think it is fair enough to make some base rules like "don't be too
lame" (define "too lame"), but almost everybody should be accepted.
> >Ok, it is not fading out, but it is fading, meaning it is no longer the
> >exciting thing that it seemed to be and was attracting some many people
> >from everywhere.
>
> I disagree even with the toned-down version :) I think that the Web as a
> medium is one of the most promising infrastructures around. True, the hype
> is gone, but that's a good thing. I don't think the hype moved anywhere
> else, it's just gone (for now :)
I guess you just say that because you were simply not affected by the
major Internet layoffs that happened in the latest months, so you don't
seem to have a great idea how bad this has been for so many people.
Of course the Internet is not gone. It just happens that the number of
companies with business depending on it was drastically reduced. So,
there aren't so much employment and business opportinities as before.
That's what I mean.
> >It is not a matter of loosing that focus, but rather enlarge the focus
> >of PHP that is adverstised for things that some people are already using
> >it seriously.
>
> By definition of the word focus (well, almost), there's no real way to
> 'enlarge' it without losing it. We can play with words forever, though :)
Ok, I meant enlarging the focus area, but I agree, there's no point in
carrying on with playing with how each other expresses in English. :-)
> >Anyway, lets just concentrate on the Web development focus. Web
> >development is not just Web scripts that are served by the Web server.
> >Web development is also, installing and maitaining applications and also
> >run processes that run separately from the Web server.
> >
> >You know you can run PHP from the command line to do things like run
> >database installation scripts or run cron scripts that execute periodic
> >tasks.
> >
> >The truth is that most people are not aware of this. They think PHP can
> >only be run from the Web server to serve Web pages. I was suprised by
> >the number of people that was telling me that Perl is better for running
> >scripts from the command line. Duh?! Why? Because nobody told them
> >otherwise! This very wrong perception of the current PHP user base needs
> >urgent fixing! The fix needs not to be applied in PHP, but rather in PHP
> >users minds. PHP needs to be advertised as tool than can run scripts
> >from anywhere, like any other language. For starters, drop the
> >designation of PHP CGI version.
>
> Could be. The truth is that PHP *is* lacking in command line features if
> you compare it to Perl, because it was indeed never brought up to be a
> command line tool...
I don't think the actual PHP for command line features matter. My point
is that people get it wrong. What is it that you can do on Perl in the
command line that you can't do with PHP? Nothing relevant, it is that
people hardly can concieve PHP as a command line scripting language
because PHP is not known nor advertised as a capable language to work
that way. That is what needs fixing: people's misconceptions. That's
fixable with targetted marketing.
> >If people are already using PHP that way for serious purposes, why
> >neglect that it can be used that way? That only lets other languages
> >take over a space that PHP has already conquered.
>
> I'm not saying it won't happen, but I've yet to see projects like PHP-GTK
> being used 'seriously'. To make it clearer, I've yet to see an application
> which is actually written in PHP-GTK, and is being distributed or
Man, give it some time! How long was it since Andrei released PHP-GTK?
How old is PHP now?
> sold. The day may come, but unlike the Web ring where we hold a huge
> chunk, I find it very hard to imagine seeing PHP taking a considerable
> chunk of the GUI market, ever.
One thing is certain, if you don't help advertising PHP as capable of
doing GUI programming, things won't be as easy.
I think it is amazing the some how unexpected uses that people find for
PHP. What really confuses me is that instead of making that "use cases"
to promote PHP, you simply raise a lot of objections as if that would
cause any harm to PHP. Come on, enjoy all the PHP users applications
because they certainly help you to make the proof of concept that PHP is
the right choice for so many people.
> >The way I see, most people tend to only use one language at once. If
> >they see an alternative to PHP not only serves well for Web programming,
> >but also for non-Web programming, PHP will loose its user base there. It
> >is a matter of time until a lot of PHP people will start seeing it that
> >way.
>
> It's really an issue of different opinions. I think our focus should
> remain on the Web ring, because we can't enlarge it without losing it. We
> can foster additional projects, such as PHP-GTK, improved command line
> features, etc., but the way I see it, if you want to define PHP in one
> sentence, the best qualifying one would still be 'A Server Side, HTML
> Embedded Scripting Language' (sorry Andrei ;). It's true that it can be
> used in other ways, but that's the focus, and the rest are useful 'exceptions'.
Useful? How can you reckon them as useful if you insist on neglecting
them?
One other thing, I don't know if you notice, that but every time you
neglect these unexpected uses of PHP you are somehow ruling out people
behind them. That's a serious thing because you are eventually hurting
people's feelings when that worked so hard to use the language that you
developed. If people are making a private use of their work and could
not care less if their work is reckoned, that is not a problem. But
sometimes you see people working so hard with recognition as their main
goal. Neglecting that recognition or making it very hard is terrible. I
don't thing you want those people to give up for the lack of
recognition, don't you?
> >No, I mean executables that may be just like VB executables that
> >basically contain PHP code compiled into Zend bytecodes or whatever is
> >enough for most people be stopped from copy source code directly.
> >
> >A lot of people give up PHP because it does not provide affordable
> >conditions to let them sell whole applications that others can't still
> >their code, when they can just spend only US$100 or less in VB, Delphi,
> >Java, Kylix, etc... suite and compile programs that they can distribute
> >or sell to others without risking their business.
> >
> >There are a lot more other things to say on these subjects, but these
> >should give you enough to think for a while. :-)
>
> Thank you :)
You're welcome, but you just skipped the implicit million dollar
question: will there be an affordable version of Zend encoder that
developers can buy for USD$100 like they can with VB or Delphi? :-)
Regards,
Manuel Lemos
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