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To: Lester Caine <lester@lsces.co.uk>
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Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 23:26:35 +0200
References: <48C5F612.6090001@lsces.co.uk> <48C60671.4040608@chiaraquartet.net> <48C6120E.6020606@lsces.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: 5.3 Backwards Compatibility
From: mls@pooteeweet.org (Lukas Kahwe Smith)

Hi,

So let me get this straight, you are complaining that all the new  
features and changes in the 5.3.0 alpha releases are not perfectly  
documented yet?

If that is the case I really wonder how you managed to survive the  
releases before?

Let me just give you a break down of how much better the situation for  
5.3.0 is compared to 5.2.0 due to the combined efforts of various  
teams inside PHP.net:

1) there is a scratchpad that at least lists relevant changes
2) most of the big new features (and some of the small) have RFC's  
detailing the implementation, the concepts and some examples
3) several features have already been documented (although I guess  
this was also the case with previous PHP releases, so this does not  
really count as an improvement .. but like in previous releases as  
features are tweaked the documentation can get out of sync)
4) we have planned to work on the upgrading guide starting with the  
beta phase, previously this happened in the RC phase IIRC
5) from my perception new features tend to come in with more test  
cases than in the past (though i might be mistaken here, but our test  
coverage is improving even as we add new features)
6) todo list with links to relevant threads, sites, RFC etc (in the  
past there were much fewer links next to todo items)
7) with alpha2 we even had windows releases at the same time as *nix

So yes, this means that for alpha releases, we are not spoon feeding  
testers. This we are aware of and given the current ressources I think  
we are in _very_ good shape in 5.3.0 (see above for details). We  
expect testers to be able and willing to figure things out by reading  
RFCs, reading test cases, following links on the todo list, checking  
the scratchpad, checking the documentation, being able to deal with  
slightly outdated information etc.

For the beta phase we want to be able to provide a alpha quality  
(meaning most things should be mentioned, but some things might not be  
complete) upgrading guide. So starting with the beta releases, the  
expectations we have in the testers are lowered significantly.

One we are in RC phase, the upgrading guide should be in beta state  
and I expect the documentation to pick up outdated information and  
fill in blanks. Though I am not involved enough in the doc team to  
really tell how they operate and how quickly they can fill in the  
blanks with the ressources they have.

So all in all, it seems to me like you are suffering from unreasonable  
expectations. Instead you should be congratulating the entire PHP.net  
crew for their gigantic leap forward.

regards,
Lukas

PS: As for PEAR I agree with Greg. Its not a topic for this list, but  
suffice it to say that dependency handling is probably one of the  
strongest points of PEAR.