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To: Chris Stockton <chrisstocktonaz@gmail.com>
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Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 23:45:20 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Short syntax for array literals [...]
From: johannes@php.net (Johannes =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Schl=FCter?=)


On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 13:32 -0700, Chris Stockton wrote: 
> My only question, is what does PHP want. When I say PHP, of course I
> am referring to the tens-of-thousands of users that make PHP a
> success. Lets remember that "random commenters" which I would like to
> refer to as PHP's actual user base, which I would further annotate
> that the "committers" graciously power, respectively; In general tend
> to favor introducing the syntax. So, if you were to apply that ratio
> to the tens(hundreds?) of thousands of people actually using PHP 50:50

Well, the "commiters" become "commiters" since they show continuing
interest in PHP and spent time to learn about the internals and made
experiences for taking the consequences from "bad" decisions. There are
non-commiters here which are really smart and probably have way more
experience than many others around here but many of the commenters here
seem not to be of that kind, some say "hey, that's fancy new stuff I
want it" but don't think about any consequences ... I simply assume that
the amount of these people is less in the "commiters" group, and well,
it are the "commiters" who will, most likely, maintain the engine over
the nextfew years, non-commiters come and go on this list more
frequently.

Besides the "clue" factor there's another point: Most Contributors do
stuff _they_ need and by chance "users" get it, too. That in the hope
that others contribute, too and create stuff the other one uses. For
most people there's not much reason to maintain stuff they don't need
all they get is a bigger ego. If a "user" wants a feature he should step
up 

Oh, and I like that posting from another project's list about that
topic:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2007-April/070607.html

> I have been watching the mailing list for long as I can remember and
> seems that features and such are never truly voted for. Perhaps a
> PHP.net voting system should be made, so PHP can progress based off
> what the community wants, not what a group of "committers" want. I

Voting? Oh my.
I don't agree to all stuff in the book, but in general it's a good read:
http://producingoss.com/html-chunk/consensus-democracy.html

> respect fully the time and effort put into the project but time to
> time I see the vote of PHP (in the afore mentioned context) lost and
> discounted for.

Generally speaking: Why should somebody develop and maintain a feature
for free he doesn't want? If a "user" wants a feature they should prove
that they will maintain it in the longer run and provide a patch. Most
stuff in PHP was done since the contributors needed it themselves....

So back to the original topic: In a 50:50 scenario I'd certainly give
more weight to people I know for contributing for a long time than
somebody who just appeared on the list. That's what I said in my
previous mail.

johannes