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Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:00:24 -0800
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To: Steph Fox <steph@zend.com>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] why we must get rid of unicode.semantics switch ASAP
From: andrei@gravitonic.com (Andrei Zmievski)

What's going to make PHP 7 different than PHP 6? We'll be back to the 
same discussion then. PHP 5 people have had a long time to work with 
mbstring, etc and still Unicode a big scary beast.

-Andrei

Steph Fox wrote:
> Blimey. I agree with Rasmus. That's twice now!
> 
> I think PHP 6 should be an interim period with support for both 
> scenarios, but with the default being bog-standard as-we-know-it 
> IS_STRING and anything IS_UNICODE needing to be marked.
> 
> Perhaps PHP 7 can drop the IS_STRING stuff and have it all IS_UNICODE, 
> by removing the need to mark unicode text and taking it all that way. I 
> think doing this in PHP 6 will make for a white elephant situation (and 
> we like purple-blue, no?)
> 
> - Steph
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@lerdorf.com>
> To: "Chris Stockton" <chrisstocktonaz@gmail.com>
> Cc: "php-dev" <internals@lists.php.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 7:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] why we must get rid of unicode.semantics switch ASAP
> 
> 
>> I don't disagree with this, and that is actually why I insisted on 
>> having the unicode-semantics switch from the early days of the Unicode 
>> discussions, so you can blame me, again, if you consider it a bad 
>> design decision.
>>
>> My take on it was that just about all ISPs would run with Unicode 
>> semantics off and that the Unicode semantics on mode was more geared 
>> for large standalone applications and sites that wanted the luxury of 
>> working natively in their chosen character set without needing to 
>> always jump through hoops.
>>
>> If we get rid of the switch, then I agree that we can't make the 
>> default string IS_UNICODE.  We would be crippling the implementation 
>> and taking a step backwards in terms of leading the way in Unicode 
>> adoption.  The longterm goal for just about everyone has got to be a 
>> "Unicode everywhere" approach.  It used to be that the Web was 
>> primarily a Western single-byte charset phenomena, but that hasn't 
>> been the case for years.  All major applications out there have 
>> implemented various hacks to deal with these issues, some with more 
>> success than others.
>>
>> This is what PHP does.  We take common Web development pains and try 
>> to reduce them.  Think back to the pains of XML parsing in PHP 3 and 
>> even in PHP 4 compared to today.
>>
>> Ultimately we need to get to Unicode everywhere, and the Unicode 
>> semantics switch was an acknowledgement that the world isn't quite 
>> ready for that yet.  But it sounds like the world isn't ready for the 
>> switch either. Without it, I am afraid we will never get there, and 
>> that may just be something we have to live with.
>>
>> -Rasmus
>>
>> Chris Stockton wrote:
>>> I partially agree, I have been watching this discussion and it's funny
>>> how we have such a class of high end developers saying to break old
>>> PHP code. But, the majority of the success of PHP is not due to this
>>> small class of high end developers, it's due to it's availability in a
>>> shared hosting environment, and the ease of use for beginners, and the
>>> oodles of fairly poor quality code that is easy to copy and paste onto
>>> peoples websites.
>>>
>>> Look at the adoption of php4, many webhosts haven't even updated to
>>> PHP5 completely due to things like register_globals and small
>>> backwards compatibility breakage. The list of problems is small and
>>> correctable, if you give system engineers at all of these hosting
>>> companies the choice of A. Upgrade to php6 and drive support calls
>>> through the roof, or B. Stay at PHP4/5 for eternity until a more
>>> (insert your complaints / rants here) language comes along to dethrone
>>> PHP.
>>>
>>> Problem is, PHP has been built to great success based on it's early
>>> foundation, but now a group of high class developers want it to be
>>> more then PHP was built onto. You will sacrifice it's success if
>>> backwards compatibility is not just, broke, but obliterated. Why
>>> change PHP's philosophy? Keep it easy for the new user, keep it
>>> successful, and make me work a little more when I want to implement my
>>> "high class" development methodologies. I don't mind, I do it already.
>>>
>>> I write this as a "high class" developer.
>>>
>>> -1
>>>
>>> -Chris
>>>
>>> On Jan 22, 2008 7:32 PM, Richard Lynch <ceo@l-i-e.com> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, January 21, 2008 8:38 am, Antony Dovgal wrote:
>>>>> 6 reasons why we must to get rid of The Switch ASAP
>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------
>>>> I was +1...
>>>>
>>>> Until folks started posting that old PHP scripts won't run as-is in
>>>> PHP 6?...
>>>>
>>>> That's just daft...
>>>>
>>>> When my webhost upgrades to PHP 6, I need all my old scripts to just
>>>> keep on chugging away, as much as possible...
>>>>
>>>> I really think we're stuck with the default "string" being an
>>>> old-school binary string, unless you want to lose a LOT of users in a
>>>> hurry, or have PHP 5 stick around forever and ever.
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Some people have a "gift" link here.
>>>> Know what I want?
>>>> I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist.
>>>> http://cdbaby.com/from/lynch
>>>> Yeah, I get a buck. So?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
>>>> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
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>>
>