Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:54864
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 209.85.213.170 as permitted sender)
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <CAH-PCH5DiMt4XwH75gMeaaJdD+FS-iNOfABn_X7eRYG3qJbNXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1314115682.2635.98.camel@guybrush> <4E545A6C.60704@akbkhome.com>
 <CAH-PCH5jyEQZvwgqxkUpqN7a-VUc+nYt=_ixFQ1si64xxMBw4A@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.02.1108241035240.3964@whisky> <CAEZPtU6OdCv2woSq1p9-D6oJf3nNWbocd48C059RTnXa-bqtsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH-PCH5hG4i76ox03YvFVrt+FCoUR=SxouCzQW4nTpafbZ8h2w@mail.gmail.com>
 <1314182524.2261.12.camel@guybrush> <CAH-PCH5DiMt4XwH75gMeaaJdD+FS-iNOfABn_X7eRYG3qJbNXw@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:28:03 +0500
Message-ID: <CAAAa2sjmxjq+Mpw7GSRp02oj_km_7Od4jnFU75_A7Rf_Ze_EfA@mail.gmail.com>
To: Ferenc Kovacs <tyra3l@gmail.com>
Cc: =?UTF-8?Q?Johannes_Schl=C3=BCter?= <johannes@schlueters.de>, 
	Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com>, Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>, alan@akbkhome.com, 
	internals@lists.php.net
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP 5.3.8 Released!
From: confik@gmail.com (Alexey Shein)

2011/8/24 Ferenc Kovacs <tyra3l@gmail.com>:
> 2011/8/24 Johannes Schl=C3=BCter <johannes@schlueters.de>:
>> On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 12:24 +0200, Ferenc Kovacs wrote:
>>> we could have spotted this via two ways:
>>> - those who participated in fixing
>>> https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=3D53727 could have spotted this
>>> - our tests should have start failing after the change
>>
>> Third option:
>> - RC testers might have spotted and reported it.
>>
>> I have the impression that very few people actually test these. When
>> creating an RC we inform the "primary testers" as well as qa and
>> internals list members. From there I get one or two responses in
>> general.
>>
>> When I approach PHP users I often get answers like installing PHP
>> without breaking their setup would be complicated (which is not the case
>> but maybe needs education?) and they won't have time. I try to use a
>> hypothetical case, like we have here in reality, to explain them why it
>> is beneficial for their business if it is detected early as then we can
>> fix it, fixing something after a release is hard. We also can try to
>> improve our tests but we will never be able to test each and every way
>> PHP is being used out there in the wild.
>>
>>
>> So how can we motivate people to test new versions during RC not the day
>> after it is being released?
>>
>>
>> We don't push them out as news on the php.net frontpage and we don't
>> send it out to the announce list for reasons like not confusing users.
>> Should we change that? Other ideas?
>>
>> johannes
>
> agree, should have mentioned that.
> I think that currently testing the RCs have a very high barrier.
> usually they are going unnoticed for most people and compiling your
> own version (with all the extensions that you need) can be really
> cumbersome.
> - we need to get out the word to the masses (the current php.net site
> simply lacks this, maybe the http://prototype.php.net/ will be better
> in this regard), for which we also need to lower the barriers to
> entry:
> - better documentation about how to build your own php version would
> be a must, maybe phpfarm can be also useful for this

I would really glad to have a script that will be eager to enable as
much modules as it can find on my machine (plus enable debug flags as
--enable-zts-maintainer and such) and even offer to install some
missing dependencies from OS packages (I'm on ubuntu so it's easy to
do some apt-get/yum install if you know what are you for). For now you
have to read quite a long list of configure options and then install
their dependencies which are quite non-obvious to find out.

> - we should cooperate with the major php projects out there to run
> their testsuites against the new releases or maybe even trunk, if I
> remember correctly somebody mentioned that we already do this for some
> projects (maybe Pierre mentioned this). this would be an easy way to
> boost our test coverage and make the BC breaks more obvious.
> - having pre-packaged versions of php available would also help,
> testing out the latest mysql versions are much more easy for example,
> as I can just grab the Linux - Generic archive, extract it, and voila,
> I can test it.
> - projects like http://apt.damz.org/ also help
>
> --
> Ferenc Kov=C3=A1cs
> @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu
>
> --
> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>



--=20
Regards,
Shein Alexey