Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:66095
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 209.85.215.46 as permitted sender)
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1302201817350.5312@whisky.home.derickrethans.nl>
References: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1302201817350.5312@whisky.home.derickrethans.nl>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 10:45:17 +0100
Message-ID: <CADH-sQc0bwANozXyn4=EeQf1U3EiyHVtdexCDT9vTqAQ_LdZyw@mail.gmail.com>
To: Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>
Cc: PHP Developers Mailing List <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Give the Language a Rest motion (fwd)
From: eloybote@gmail.com (Eloy Bote Falcon)

2013/2/20 Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>:
> Looks like it is time to forward this email from 2006 again:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:57:32 +0200
> From: Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>
> To: internals@lists.php.net
> Subject: [PHP-DEV] Give the Language a Rest motion
>
> I'd like to raise a motion to 'Give the Language a Rest'.
>
> Almost a decade since we started with the 2nd iteration on the syntax (PHP 3),
> and 2 more major versions since then, and we're still heatedly debating on
> adding new syntactical, core level features.
>
> Is it really necessary?  I'd say in almost all cases the answer's no, and a
> bunch of cases where a new feature could be useful does not constitute a good
> enough reason to add a syntax level feature.  We might have to account for new
> technologies, or maybe new ways of thinking that might arise, but needless to
> say, most of the stuff we've been dealing with in recent times doesn't exactly
> fall in the category of cutting edge technology.
>
> My motion is to make it much, much more difficult to add new syntax-level
> features into PHP.  Consider only features which have significant traction to a
> large chunk of our userbase, and not something that could be useful in some
> extremely specialized edge cases, usually of PHP being used for non web stuff.
>
> How do we do it?  Unfortunately, I can't come up with a real mechanism to
> 'enforce' a due process and reasoning for new features.
>
> Instead, please take at least an hour to bounce this idea in the back of your
> mind, preferably more.  Make sure you think about the full context, the huge
> audience out there, the consequences of  making the learning curve steeper with
> every new feature, and the scope of the goodness that those new features bring.
> Consider how far we all come and how successful the PHP language is today, in
> implementing all sorts of applications most of us would have never even thought
> of when we created the language.
>
> Once you're done thinking, decide for yourself.  Does it make sense to be
> discussing new language level features every other week?  Or should we, perhaps,
> invest more in other fronts, which would be beneficial for a far bigger
> audience.  The levels above - extensions to keep with the latest technologies,
> foundation classes, etc.  Pretty much, the same direction other mature languages
> went to.
>
> To be clear, and to give this motion higher chances of success, I'm not talking
> about jump.  PHP can live with jump, almost as well as it could live without it
> :)  I'm talking about the general sentiment.
>
> Zeev
>
> --
> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
> --
> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>

Agree. There are only a few core devs working daily in the PHP
internals. I would say please give the Language (and devs) a rest
motion, because there are a lot of bugs and work to be done but I'm
afraid that is more easy/funny to request a new feature/syntax than do
the grunt work :(