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Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2019 00:10:20 +0300
Message-ID: <CAJHtznxvdVAhnz=osny5zcpyuCYDx=jZEpaofpvToxQ59wPaZA@mail.gmail.com>
To: Bob Weinand <bobwei9@hotmail.com>
Cc: "internals@lists.php.net" <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000c0fcd8058fb59ab3"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Bringing Peace to the Galaxy
From: vsuraski@gmail.com (Zeev Suraski)

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Bob,

I appreciate your candid email.  Please see responses below.

On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 11:12 PM Bob Weinand <bobwei9@hotmail.com> wrote:

> It's clearly quite a feat, your contributions to PHP 3 and PHP 4.
> This does not give you any authority now.


While I completely disagree, that is completely beside the point.  My
comments to Dan were not in the context of authority - but in the context
of knowledge.
I think it takes quite a bit of Chutzpah, to tell a person - that by his
widely-known credentials is an world-class expert with how the PHP engine
works - that he effectively doesn't know what he's talking about.  Even
more so when it's coming from someone who's no such expert.

From my perspective at least (and others I've talked to), you are writing
> like you would have a leadership position which you do not have.


You're obviously entitled to that opinion.  But I'm entitled to my own.
PHP 7, which you're likely currently using - would not have existed if it
wasn't for my leadership (and, of course, Dmitry's remarkable skills, as
well as Nikita's and yours).


> Back to the main question:
> I think I have worked much more recently than you actively on this project
> and I can tell you that Dan is absolutely right here.
>

The fact you worked more recently on the project isn't really relevant
here.  The fundamentals of what it means to add a new mode to PHP haven't
changed since the days of PHP 4.  What I am proposing is not more
complicated to implement than Nikita's 'editions' idea.  Arguably - in the
long run - it's actually less complicated.  It's also not complicated in
absolute terms.  Provided you understand the idea itself.

At the very least there's an additional maintenance burden (let alone
> implementing everything we'd like to change).
>

Yes, there is.  But for code that's super stable and barely ever changes.
And I'll point out again - the very same maintenance overhead - and more -
exists in Nikita's idea.
The only legitimate point of concern - which Nikita alluded to, is the
implementing all (or most) of the compatibility-breaking changes in one go
may be too challenging with the resources we have.  My gut is that it
wouldn't be - although here I'd agree that Nikita's gut - or your gut for
that matter - are probably more accurately than mine.  With that said, we'd
only know that once we look at the list.

I'm not going to defend Dan's tone here, but let me agree with what he's
> saying.
>

I'm happy that you at least don't defend his tone.


> You are being divisive, intentionally or not (I assume the latter),
> whether you're aware or not.
>

It may surprise you, but I'm well aware of it.  I know that the majority of
internals@ frequenters (at least the ones who speak up) are from the
strict/no-BC camp, and having been a key proponent of the other school of
thought - that did not buy me much love on internals.  And yes, I know
there are other reasons.

However, I'm also well aware of the fact that while internals@ sets the
course for PHP - there are groups in PHP world which are grossly
underpresented in it (or aren't represented at all).  Trust me, I'm not
enjoying any of this.  You may think I'm getting some sort of a kick out of
having a 15-way discussion with folks attacking me from every direction.  I
don't, it's as pleasant as having my teeth pulled out.  Take Nikita's
comments re: his mental well-being, and multiply them twentyfold - and
you'd probably get an idea of my level of enjoyment is.  Others - who share
my view and have more code-contributions merit than almost everyone else
combined (I'm talking about Dmitry here), just don't have the mental
strength to deal with it and gave up.  But even if you don't think I have a
leadership position, as one of the people who started this project and
helped lead it to tremendous success  - and as someone who's well aware
that there's a much more diverse universe beyond internals@ - I refuse to
give in.  Even more so when I think there may be a way to solve our biggest
challenge over the last decade in an elegant way that works for everyone.

Let me, at this place, kindly ask you to not repeatedly engage in a same
> discussion. Have your voice heard, once.

There are a lot of topics where you state something (with content going
> also towards other tangents, discussing voting systems) and then the topic
> starts going off a tangent.
> This is annoying. I want to read the technical points. And then form my
> opinion. Not find long discussions about anything else or backs and forths
> not leading to any result or providing more technical context.
>

While I can't guarantee that I'll have my voice heard once (this is not, at
all, what a mailing list is about - it's about interactivity) - I can say
that I'll try to move to an article approach - like the Counterpoint I
published for short tags or the FAQ for P++.

Get a chat room to discuss process issues. Don't always be the one who
> presents the ideas. You ARE being viewed as controversial. You bringing
> proposals up is not going to be a productive discussion.
>

It may surprise you (perhaps not by now), but I'm well aware of that.  I'd
be happy for someone else to present these ideas, but reality is that few
on internals share my line of thinking, and those who do - don't have the
mental strength or motivation to do it in my place.
So what you are essentially telling me is that I'm cursed by some sort of
modern age Cassandra's curse, where I can only watch bad things happen
without doing anything about it - or propose new ideas.  While I think I
have to choose from a lousy set of choices (as I agree with so much of what
you said) - doing my best to bring up and defend my ideas is still the
least worse option - even if it's super costly for me personally, and even
if it rubs people the wrong way.  If you share Dmitry's and my views and
are willing to be our voice and the voice of some unrepresented masses on
internals@, I'll be happy to discuss this with you and delegate the job.
Not just happy - ecstatic.

Thanks again for the candid yet respectful email - I do appreciate it.

Zeev

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