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Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 12:32:38 +0100
Reply-To: RQuadling@GoogleMail.com
To: "Antony Dovgal" <antony@zend.com>
Cc: "Lukas Kahwe Smith" <mls@pooteeweet.org>, 
	"Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@lerdorf.com>, 
	"Derick Rethans" <derick@php.net>, 
	"Cristian Rodriguez" <judas.iscariote@gmail.com>, 
	internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] What is the use of "unicode.semantics" in PHP 6?
From: rquadling@googlemail.com ("Richard Quadling")

On 06/07/07, Antony Dovgal <antony@zend.com> wrote:
> On 06.07.2007 14:04, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
> > To me it boils down how we want to maintain the "fork":
> >
> > 1) PHP5 and PHP6
> > 2) PHP6 unicode off/on (with PHP5 in maintenance mode)
> >
> > Considering that people will not jump on PHP6 immediately anyways, I
> > think 1) is more realistic, if we make best efforts to back port new
> > features to PHP5, but still require that new features go into PHP6
> > first. Some features might not get back ported and that is a somewhat
> > unfriendly nudge towards PHP6. So it goes.
>
> I tend to agree with this POV more and more.
>
> Especially considering this:
> --
> > Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
> >
> >> So yes, the only real customers for this full Unicode mode in PHP 6 are
> >> going to be the folks that have full control over their servers and
> >> their software which will likely limit it to hosted services and exclude
> >> large PHP software packages that will necessarily need to be written to
> >> be portable.
> --
>
> If we admit that we release a special PHP version for a very limited set
> of users then keeping that On/Off switch makes no sense to me.
> And it's not about choice, customers DO have a choice - either it's PHP5 (which will
> still be there for the next 10 years at the very least) or PHP6 aka Unicode PHP.
>
> You don't by a Porsche if you need a taxi, why would you install PHP6 if you don't need Unicode?
> New features? Let's just agree that we can (and definitely will) backport all the fancy looking
> new features from PHP6 to PHP5 and both these branches can live together happily.
>
> > This way the PHP6 code base stays lean and people can realistically code
> > against PHP6. Hosters will hopefully offer both PHP5 and PHP6. I doubt
> > that many hosters would be interested in offering 3 versions at once
> > (PHP5, PHP6 unicode on/off).

If Unicode had been an extension (one of those that are part of the
core and cannot be disabled) with its own
classes/exceptions/functions/etc, then everyone would have been happy.
Unicode is a great idea, but I don't use unicode at the moment, but
I'd still like to have PHP6 when it is officially released without
having to do major work to make my code compliant AND without having
to turn Unicode off.

For those that need it, then they can code for it. For those that
don't they still get all the other improvements in PHP6 and without
the reported speed issues as they are not using the extension.

This seems like a winner to me.


-----
Richard Quadling
Zend Certified Engineer : http://zend.com/zce.php?c=ZEND002498&r=213474731
"Standing on the shoulders of some very clever giants!"