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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] What is the use of "unicode.semantics" in PHP 6?
From: larry@garfieldtech.com (Larry Garfield)

Andi,

Is there a guide somewhere for those who are PHP developers, not C developers, 
who would want to try existing code under PHP 6 but don't know all the ins 
and outs of the new unicode system?  It sounds like there's 3-4 unicode 
switches in php.ini, but maybe I'm missing some and I'm sure I don't fully 
understand what they're all supposed to do.

I mean a single-sourced guide along the lines of:

- Get PHP-free system.

- Download this file:

- Untar, run make install.

- Do X to get the mysql(i) driver in there too (since more apps use that than 
PDO right now).

- Tour of the new php.ini switches to play with and what they mean/do:

- Try running your app.  Known places where there may be issues: (Johannes' 
earlier post is a great starting point)

- Please direct reports on your successes and what broke to: 

A "PHP 6 testers' instruction manual" would probably make it a lot easier to 
be a PHP 6 tester. :-)

On Tuesday 21 August 2007, Andi Gutmans wrote:
> If there's an overwhelming support for removing the switch then I guess
> that's where it is. I still think it's a mistake and we are risking a
> big split in the user base going forward but time will tell. Long term
> PHP may not recover from that split unless we truly manage to help the
> most popular PHP applications to make the leap. They have been some of
> the biggest drivers behind PHP adoption, probably just as much as the
> technology itself.
>
> The burden of maintenance will definitely be higher. Right now we have
> to identify what features we think need back porting to PHP 5.3 which in
> my opinion looses a lot of good energy which could go into futures but
> that's where we're at. The PHP 5 user-base is strong, and growing and
> will require a lot of these features.
>
> I still think that the community and internals@ should still invest
> significantly in making migration as easy as possible and making clear
> what the performance attributes are. As I said, I'll be more than happy
> to pitch in when the time comes in running benchmarks and trying to
> figure out if a good migration methodology/scripts can be done. There
> are also some backporting of features which may make it easier for
> people to do a slower migration like (binary) cast (would be a no-op)
> and some other things. Still need to think about this further but there
> may be some things that can help.
>
>
> Andi
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lukas Kahwe Smith [mailto:mls@pooteeweet.org]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 7:26 AM
> > To: Andi Gutmans
> > Cc: jani.taskinen@iki.fi; internals@lists.php.net
> > Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] What is the use of "unicode.semantics" in PHP
>
> 6?
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Ok, so I think its becoming clear that BC is not the main issue we
>
> will
>
> > be addressing with the unicode switch. I know Zeev's mantra that BC is
> > not binary, but from the people that have posted feedback on the topic
> > from actual experience it seems that making code work on PHP5 (and
>
> even
>
> > PHP4) as well as PHP6 is possible with a bit of work, but without a
> > rewrite.
> >
> > So at this point the main argument can only resolve around
>
> performance.
>
> > So the question is how much performance does a user gain by turning of
> > unicode in PHP6. We might be able to figure this out without porting
>
> an
>
> > actual application. Maybe with a few synthetic benchmarks, along with
> > some code analysis (maybe for 3 different categories of applications:
> > data processing intensive, web blog, database heavy application)) of
> > how
> > often particularily slow functions are called in an average
> > application,
> > we could extrapolate a ball park figure of what kind of slow down to
> > expect.
> >
> > regards,
> > Lukas


-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry@garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, 
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to 
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession 
of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."  -- Thomas 
Jefferson