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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP Specification
From: larry@garfieldtech.com (Larry Garfield)

On 3/24/14, 2:10 PM, Johannes Schlüter wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-03-24 at 12:06 -0500, Larry Garfield wrote:
>>
>> It's not just "well someone should write it", because it's not just a
>> question of writing it.  "Just write it" is a documentation effort,
>> not a specification effort.  A specification effort would entail a
>> cultural shift that new RFCs are patches against the specification
>> document, NOT against php-src.  A patch to php-src would come second,
>> and would be bound by the specification, not vice versa.  That is,
>> this isn't just a matter of "somebody should do something", it's "we
>> should collectively change our process."
>>
>> The proposal on the table isn't "we should write a spec version of
>> what php-src does today".  It's "we should change the approach to
>> evolving PHP to be specification-centric, not
>> reference-implementation-centric."
>
> PHP works a lot by pushing contributors to change their habits over
> time: the RFC process started slowly and evolved and will continue to do
> that, it will more and more look at a specification level. In that sense
> there is the need for somebody to start writing it. This won't happen if
> nobody sits down, creates an initial version and pushes for it.
>
> That said: Even a specification driven process will need feedback from
> some implementation. (C++98 was never fully implemented by anybody as it
> was basically impossible, to do, some (all?) these issues where fixed in
> C++11 which had two implementations close to the standardization
> process, with C++14 the two are even faster than standardization; is
> there any fully standard conforming Perl 6 implementation, yet?)
>
> So yes, we need somebody who *pushes by doing* till we find a good
> balance. it won't happen by itself.
>
> johannes

Sure.  I'm not saying there's not a lot of work involved that someone 
will have to do.  But it's a fair question to ask, "before I (someone) 
spend the next 3 years of my life pushing to shift PHP to a spec-based 
language, who is going to cheer from the sidelines and who is going to 
fight me tooth and nail?"

Pushing for something that everyone's going to fight against is not 
worth the effort; the discussion of "should we do this?" should be had 
before the work is done, not after.  That saves antacid expenses for 
everyone.

--Larry Garfield