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Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:01:50 +0200
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To: "internals@lists.php.net" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Was Reflection annotations reader - We Need A Vision
From: florinpatan@gmail.com (Florin Razvan Patan)

This could be very well be off-topic but I think it is something that
 someone has to say it at some point. Don't worry, there's a vision
 in there, near the end of this, please just have the patience of
 reading this as a part rant, part wish :)

 You all speak about new things, better userland code, gaining new
 features, functionalities, getting a vision but you never speak about
 the core.

 There's a clear need for a change in the core but new features are
 demanded every day...

 Solving the core should be done with a major BC break after 5.5
 and it should improve all the things that need to do be improved
 while preparing the architecture for future changes/additions.

 I think that Symfony2 should be a great example of this being a
 good approach in terms of produced results. If you look at the code
 it will provide both the cleanness and the flexibility needed to do
 great things with it yet it allows it so be simple to pick up and
 learned by new devs.

 Maybe other projects, including PHP, should take this lesson and
 see how they can make themselves better even if in the process
 they'll break all user space.

 For PHP strictly speaking now, I think that after 5.5 there should
 be a pause of two-three months for devs, get a holiday or just
 relax, then, sit with the community at a couple of meetings and
 talk about how PHP 6, 6.1, 6.2 and so on could/should look like.

 I'm not saying it's going to be an easy task, nor a pleasant one,
 but this should be done sooner that later as it's bound to happen
 at some point imho.

 While we might not get cool new things like annotations, named
 parameters or anything else that we, the users of PHP would like,
 we could get:
 - better internals which help adding those missing features faster;
 - make APC easier to maintain if the parser/compiler are easier to
 interact with;
 - get consistency in the whole haystack/needle problem :)
 - possibly get a better extension system so that C extensions are
 easier to write/maintain;
 - those missing things faster / easier to implement in PECL;
 - maybe more :)

 Redoing PHPs internals would help also getting a vision of the
 language, that suddenly every one cries about, while getting cleaner
 code for the core and help to increase the general numbers of core
 contributors for it.

 With such a large user base I still find it extremely surprising
 that php-core is maybe a dozen people or so while projects like
 Symfony/Zend Framework/Typo3/etc have hundreds of contributors.

 Yes! We 'need' new cool stuff in PHP, that maybe will be forgotten
 in two-three years or not, we find new ways to make the userland
 code more easy to write, operate, read and above all faster!

 But you can't build a 70 story skyscraper on top of a foundation
 that's meant to support a five story building.

 If you are going to ask the core devs to accept/do something that
 you deem cool, why not thinking about doing the things better
 all-around first, then add the coolness factor later?

 And yes, annotations are cool but it's' by far a --must-- have or
 something that gets in the way of developing new ideas to the
 point where they just can't exist (as proven by Doctrine Common).



 Have a nice day.

 ----
 Florin Patan / @dlsniper


On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Anthony Ferrara <ircmaxell@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rasmus,
>
>> Rasmus: "A general purpose scripting language with a focus on web
>> > development"
>> > You: "being simple and practical and focused on the web"
>> >
>> > While they both have "web" in them, they provide very different goals and
>> > metrics with which to gauge contributions by. And that's the entire point
>> > of my call for a single, consistent and official vision...
>>
>> They don't seem different to me, and the first one is the documented
>> statement that has been the first thing people see on http://php.net for
>> years and years. You can add "simple and practical" to mine or add
>> "general purpose" to the Stas one and it doesn't conflict in any way.
>>
>
> There's a difference between a byline and a vision. But even deeper, the
> "vision" that you wrote widens the scope of PHP development into basically
> all possible directions, as long as Web Development is a focus.
>
> Stas's vision on the other hand narrows the scope quite significantly by
> focusing on simple and practical implementations.
>
> Here's an example of the difference. Let's say that an RFC came out to
> introducelist comprehentions PHP. According to your vision, that's
> completely on the table and is welcome. But Stas's stated vision would
> counter that because it's not "simple".
>
> And Stas's stated vision leads to things like this:
> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5034365 It is trivial to misinterpret
> (or perhaps not so mis) it as "we can't do anything complex, because think
> of the new people".
>
> What I'm proposing here is a stated vision that clarifies and sets a
> reasonably narrow vision for what development should do. I'm not saying it
> needs to be a 100% "we can do this but never that", but something to guide
> progress rather than the random thoughts of the people who just so happen
> be reading the discussion at the time.
>
> Something like: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/
>
> Something to guide discussion that's applicable primarily to PHP...
>
> Anthony