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Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 14:24:19 +0100
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To: Nuno Lopes <nlopess@php.net>
Cc: PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RFC: Removing the Zend API
From: paul.biggar@gmail.com (Paul Biggar)

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:23 PM, Nuno Lopes <nlopess@php.net> wrote:
> Hi Paul et all,
>
> I fully understand (and even share) your motivations and goals. However i=
t
> seems to me that describing an extension in PHP will lead to loss of
> performance, as you cannot capture certain C features in PHP. For example=
,
> there are some internal functions that rely on pointer arithmetic to get
> decent performance.

This is not about capturing every C feature. Instead, it is about
strictly separating the C and PHP code. If someone wants to C pointer
arithmetic, it is simple to code it on the C side of the line. Its not
necessary to expose the exact C function from the library. Sometime,
you may wish to to have a C function wrapping it, to do some "dirty
tricks".


> Then you may extend to PHP to better capture these "dirty tricks", and th=
en
> you'll end up with some DSL for building PHP extensions. It's not
> necessarily bad, it's just a lot of work.. :)

This - which I'll call the Pyrex model - is one way to go, but its not
my preference. While I think it beats the current model, I hope that
it won't be required with whatI propose in the RFC.


> Moreover, in your example in the wiki you don't include how you would do
> parameter parsing. Or do you rely on the code generator to look at the C
> functions signatures and figure out by itself what to do? (actually there=
 is
> some ambiguity, AFAIR, and thus guessing cannot be done reliably)

That is exactly right. (I'll make this clearer in the RFC). I can't
think of any cases where guess cannot be done reliably. If you can
give me an example, I'll try and address it.



> To summarize my e-mail, I believe this is a very interesting idea, but ne=
eds
> a lot more thinking :) =C2=A0It's a nice SoC project nethertheless.

It certainly does need more thinking, and I'm hoping that people can
pick holes in it, so that I can fill them. A SoC project would be
ideal, as it would probably expose - and hopefully solve - a great
deal of flaws.


Thanks for your comments, I'll try and update the RFC in response.
Paul


> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've added a new RFC to the wiki
>> (http://wiki.php.net/rfc/remove_zend_api). It details a plan to try
>> and decouple the Zend engine from the libraries, in order to allow
>> large scale changes to the Zend engine in the future. The RFC
>> describes a prototype phase of the project, which could reasonably be
>> done within a GSOC project, so I have added it to the GSOC 09 page
>> (http://wiki.php.net/gsoc/2009#prototyping_removal_of_the_zend_api).
>>
>> If anybody has any comments, I'd be delighted to hear them. If anybody
>> knows (or is) a good student looking for a GSOC project (and I've left
>> it late, there are only 3 days left to apply), please encourage the
>> student to look at this. Finally, if anybody is interested in helping
>> mentor this as part of the GSOC, I'd be grateful for the help (I have
>> to start writing my thesis soon).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Paul
>
>



--=20
Paul Biggar
paul.biggar@gmail.com