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Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:49:19 +0300
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] What is the use of "unicode.semantics" in PHP 6?
From: jani.taskinen@sci.fi (Jani Taskinen)

Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
> Uh, this was agreed upon by everyone involved in the design of the
> Unicode support.  So saying I am the only one is extremely misleading.
> I may be the only one explaining why the decision was reached, but I am
> certainly not the only one in favour of it.

Yesterday's decisions don't necessarily apply today. ;)
(to be "agile")

> By not providing it, we ensure that a large number of people will not
> move to PHP 6.  At least by providing it we give ourselves a chance.  I

Yes, you assume that this happens. I've got a hunch too that there will be more 
PHP 6 user's than there ever where with PHP 5 by just thinking how many asian, 
arabic, etc. people there are in the world..lot more than western anyway.

> think if we drop it we are basically giving up and we will be
> maintaining 2 code bases for the next 10 years.  Do we really want that?

Yes, if it assures we can actually drop the other one at some point.

> More time than maintaining separate Unicode and non-Unicode code bases
> in difference branches?

Having 2 versions in same branch sounds very bad idea. For a simple change, you 
might have to do it 2 different ways in 2 places. And also run 'make test' and 
'make utest' (or whatever it was called again..). Also having 2 sets of tests 
for same stuff is gonna be huge PITA.

By having 2 branches of code, you change in two branches and merge the change, 
with any luck, the patch applies cleanly in both. :)

I think these issues weren't topmost in the people's minds when the decision of 
"unicode.semantics" setting was made.

--Jani