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To: "Andrei Zmievski" <andrei@gravitonic.com>
Cc: "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@lerdorf.com>,
	"Chris Stockton" <chrisstocktonaz@gmail.com>,
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Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:23:26 -0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] why we must get rid of unicode.semantics switch ASAP
From: steph@zend.com ("Steph Fox")

Unicode is a 'big scary beast' because people don't know what impact it will 
or won't have on their applications. If they're ISO-8859-1 apps there 
shouldn't be an issue - but where has anyone ever said that?

There are two options open at this point for PHP 6: unicode-only and a 
MASSIVE push for user education way before it even becomes available, _or_ 
you hold it all back and force 'non-standard' (sorry rest of the world) 
languages to use markers.

- Steph

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrei Zmievski" <andrei@gravitonic.com>
To: "Steph Fox" <steph@zend.com>
Cc: "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@lerdorf.com>; "Chris Stockton" 
<chrisstocktonaz@gmail.com>; "php-dev" <internals@lists.php.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 1:00 AM
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] why we must get rid of unicode.semantics switch ASAP


> 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
>>> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>>>
>>