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Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 00:49:32 -0400
Organization: Santronics Software, Inc.
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Subject: Proposal for a PHP-BASED Make facility
From: hsantos@isdg.net (Hector Santos)

Folks,

It has been suggested to me offlist that I should propose this idea on 
the list.

I've seem recent discussions about the multi-os complexities of the make 
system for PHP, and there talk of using this new CMake system.

Rather than YALTM (yet another language to master, we should have a 
PHP-BASED make facility for the following reasons:

   - PHP is cross platform already making it possible to easily
     and quickly to single source a PHP script based make system.

   - Everyone involved with PHP knows PHP so the scripts will be
     maintained and enhanced by the community.

   - All that is needed with a source distribution or as a
     separate distribution, is a PHPMAKE package that
     might include a root folder:

     phpmake/bin     minimum php binaries for the platform
                     i.e, php.exe, php5ts.dll for windows

     phpmake/scripts php scripts for the cross platform
                     make/build system

The beauty of this is that PHP is already cross platform so everyone 
involved with PHP at every OS have one thing in common, they know the 
PHP language! So there would be no need to learn another MAKE language, 
i.e., CMake, JavaScript, or some *nix make language, and it would offer 
an minimum learning curve for improvements and enhancements by PHP 
contributors where updates will immediately apply across the board for 
all platforms.

It will get people like me more involved to improve the configuration 
and automation of the PHP building process by developing cross platform 
Interactive Console and/or GUI based frontends.

-- 
Hector Santos, CTO
Santronics Software, Inc.