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Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:21:50 -0700
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To: Ron Korving <r.korving@xit.nl>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Moving to PHP5.1 and Apache 2.2 next year, need help
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

If we find thread safety problems in PHP we will fix them, of course.
It's not like we ignore them.  Same goes for extensions, except for
those which are specifically designed to access libraries that show no
signs of ever becoming thread safe.

At the same time, you need to recognize that developers work on what
interests them and what they personally have a need for.  I can't speak
for everyone, but a good number of the core developers lean towards the
robustness of a multi-process architecture.  Having separate memory
spaces makes everything easier to debug and when something does go wrong
it doesn't take down the whole server.  These are both very compelling
reasons to stick with this architecture.

-Rasmus

Ron Korving wrote:
> Nonetheless, Rasmus, isn't it something to work on? Like Steve said, #1 and
> #2 can be accomplished, and that would at least be a good start. You are
> right about the libraries, but in time, even these may become thread safe
> (of course, likely not by anyone from the PHP-community). Why is this
> thread-safety such a taboo for many of the people here? Don't get me wrong,
> I know it can't be done in one go, but a start could be made, right? Perhaps
> that start could be made from PHP6 on? It doesn't have to be officially
> thread safe, because of all the libraries, but it could be thread-safer...
> 
> Ron
> 
> 
> "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@lerdorf.com> wrote in message
> news:42F82AE3.6070602@lerdorf.com...
> 
>>steve roussey wrote:
>>
>>>I have read and understand that there are a number of issues:
>>>
>>>1. Problems with the Apache2 sapi
>>>2. Problems with thread safety in the Zend Engine or PHP itself
>>>3. Problems with thread-safety of modules
>>
>>You missed the most serious one.  Thread safety problems in random
>>libraries you link in and we have absolutely no control over those.
>>
>>My stuff is far bigger and busier than yours, and I have absolutely no
>>intention to go threaded anytime soon.
>>
>>-Rasmus
> 
>