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Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:55:21 +0200
To: "Zeev Suraski" <zeev@zend.com>
Cc: "Andi Gutmans" <andi@zend.com>, "Lukas Kahwe Smith" <mls@pooteeweet.org>, 
	"Ilia Alshanetsky" <ilia@prohost.org>, jani.taskinen@iki.fi, 
	internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] POSIX regex
From: pierre.php@gmail.com (Pierre)

On 7/18/07, Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> wrote:

> Pierre,
>
> I wanted to send my 2c even though I'm not really involved in
> internals@ any longer - because in reality it doesn't really have
> much to do with such decisions.  internals@ makes decisions that
> effect the entire PHP userbase.
>
> We all need to remember that the people on this mailing list are not
> close to something that represents the userbase.  We do have some
> very opinionated people on this list, some of them with a lot of
> commit-karma - which are not very open to feedback from regular
> users.  I'm not saying I represent the PHP userbase, and I don't
> think Andi is saying this either - but both of us try to take the end
> user's view when we think about stuff like this, as opposed as the
> internals@ PHP developer view.  I would go as far as saying that I
> think we do it (as well as some others, like Rasmus) more so than
> some others on this list.
>
> For that reason I suspect that if you moved the discussion to, say,
> php-general - you'd see a much more balanced view of the
> world.  Unfortunately it will probably not be very
> manageable.  Something more practical would be trying to think about
> things from the end users perspective as opposed to our perspective
> as the developers and maintainers of the language.
>
> Finally, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, we always need
> to remember that BC breakage accumulates, and it's not binary.  Every
> cleanup we do in PHP 6 will further slow migration, and as Andi
> pointed out a few days ago, things don't look too well as it is.
>
> As for ereg - especially in light of the discontinuation of PHP 4 we
> shouldn't even consider removing it in PHP 5.  I agree with Andi that
> I'm not sure it's a good idea for PHP 6 either, but I'm not sure it
> isn't either.  As long as it's easy enough to turn it back on (i.e.
> have it bundled but disabled) I think it's not unreasonable.

My answer to Andi was not only about ereg but php6 in general (the
unicode flag being a much more important problem that ereg, for
example).

I fully agree with you. Each individual here does not represent the
user base but only a relative small part.

However, my problem here is not about that but about the respect of
our voices. It is understandable that you think to have a brighter
customers base, it is not necessary the case. not historically and not
practically. Conferences attendees are also a very small part of our
users.

All in all, internals developers, with their customers, coworkers or
users (Ez, PEAR, linux package maintainers, etc.) do represent what I
consider as a good representation of what our users are or like to
have.

About the migration path, we should not forget our PHP5 lessons. All
Andi is trying to do was what was done with PHP5. Many cleanups have
not been done for the sake of BC breaks and migration troubles. We
know now that it does not matter. Users migrate when they have to or
need to not just for the fun of it.

Finally, you are right to say that an opinion has little to do with
the commit karma.

Cheers,
--Pierre