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Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 10:17:35 +0000
Message-ID: <CALKiJKqCbdC=dW0Ng5BHXRBkGd+FfDFQHYK-skcwwxEV7FCFAQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: Zeev Suraski <zeev@php.net>
Cc: Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] JIT
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

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On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 at 09:43, Zeev Suraski <zeev@php.net> wrote:

> Does it mean that when PHP 8.0 comes out (in roughly two years' time most
> probably), we'd be saying this is experimental?  Or that only in the
> meantime, for the brave folks that want to experiment PHP 8.0 ~2yrs before
> it's released, we'd say it's experimental but will remove that tag by the
> time 8.0 is released?
>


The latter. Every new feature is experimental until it's released; scalar
type hints were experimental in master until 7.0 was released; typed
properties are experimental until 7.4 is released; I don't see why this
should be any different.



> Offering it as
> something experimental (i.e. not for production) in 7.4 can help us with
> that goal, as it will make it easier for a wider range of people to
> experiment with it and provide feedback.
>


As I mentioned in a previous e-mail, I'm not clear who these extra users
are, or what value their feedback will be. On one hand, if someone tests
their application on a stale version of the JIT engine released with 7.4.0,
and says "it segfaults when I foo" or "I'm surprised it doesn't optimise
bar", the answer is likely to be "we fixed that 6 months ago in master". On
the other hand, if someone is confident enough to enable an experimental
JIT feature on a server, they're probably fine with running a pre-alpha
snapshot, or building it from source (e.g. by downloading Rasmus's vagrant
box).

If the feature was "mostly finalised but needs more testing", then an
experimental release might make sense; but that's not the impression I get
here, as it's been said over and over that deeper changes are needed to get
the full advantage, and that's why we need PHP 8 in the first place.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]

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