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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] trunk is alive and open
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

On 03/23/2010 10:05 AM, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
> 
> On 23.03.2010, at 17:59, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
> 
>> On 03/23/2010 09:36 AM, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
>>>
>>> On 23.03.2010, at 17:21, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 03/23/2010 09:11 AM, Pierre Joye wrote:
>>>>> hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I would rather have some kind of rules defined before opening trunk
>>>>> again (or the pandora box). That's what we are discussing right now.
>>>>> May I know why you choosed that now is the right time to do it and
>>>>> declare it open?
>>>>
>>>> We have rules.  Large features, write an RFC and we discuss it.  Small
>>>> and obvious improvements follow commit-then-review as before.  We don't
>>>> need more complicated rules than that.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah, but I still think it would be a good idea to figure out lets say 3-5 big time features that we focus on for the next release and a rough timeline for the next release.
>>>
>>> For example next major release Q2/Q3 2011:
>>> - traits
>>> - bundling APC
>>> - large file and big number support
>>> - ob patch
>>> - unicode improvements (*)
>>>
>>> (*) lets see what ideas we come up with, might turn out to be the big thing or maybe just a small incremental tweak here and there
>>
>> We don't need timelines right now.  What we need is some hacking time
>> and to bring some fun back into PHP development.  It hasn't been fun for
>> quite a while.  Once we have a body of new interesting stuff, we can
>> start pondering releases with a release branch off of trunk that might
>> cherry-pick a subset of the work in trunk and you can start making your
>> lists and setting timelines at that point.
> 
> 
> Well .. as you can see from the above list, this is already a backlog of fun stuff that is pretty far along. This is why I am saying lets get to a release often cycle, where people can work on stuff and be sure to get it in at a reasonable timeframe and also prevent stuff like PHP6/PHP5.3 from happening again.
> 
> And since we are talking about cherry picking features from trunk into the next release branch (along with feature branches), we are back to a situation where fun hacking can always happen. But imho we have enough features on the table that we can start cherry picking now ... of course we can still fast track other stuff later on .. but its also not that bad that after a release we already have a full pipeline to plan the next release.

Until someone does the work and commits code to trunk complete with
working tests we don't have anything except a list of theoretical
features.  We don't know if any of the things on your list are actually
feasible yet giving the level of interest from the various people behind
those items.  I know for APC, for example, both Gopal and Brian Shire
are off doing other things right now, so we may not be able to get that
list item integrated anytime soon, if ever.  What is the current state
of the traits patch?  We have 2 different large number approaches.
Those guys need to write their rfcs and compare notes.  The ob patch
seems close, but it breaks on some operating systems, so unless someone
has time to look into that, that one isn't feasible either.  And we may
end up seeing a number of other interesting and complete patches pop up.

My point is that your eventual list should come from things that have
been committed to trunk and survived review and tests.

-Rasmus