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Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 20:38:23 +0000
Cc: Michael Wallner <mike@php.net>,
 Levi Morrison <levim@php.net>,
 PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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To: Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [VOTE] pecl_http
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)

Hi Stas,

> On 28 Jan 2015, at 20:30, Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com> =
wrote:
>=20
> Hi!
>=20
>> Personally, I=E2=80=99ve never liked that PHP requires cURL for doing =
HTTP
>> requests. It=E2=80=99s a language made for the web, it should have =
built-in
>=20
> I see no problem in depending on cURL. NIH'ing every part of the
> software universe in unfeasible, and if somebody does this one job and
> does it well - why not use it? We don't have enough resources here to
> implement every detail of the huge protocol like HTTP, and that's the
> whole point of opensource to reuse and combine projects.

I suppose cURL isn=E2=80=99t so bad=E2=80=A6 really, the API is the =
biggest issue with that. HTTP requests in PHP feel like a second-class =
citizen and must be done through an awkward set of PHP bindings to a C =
library. That=E2=80=99s awful for a language made for the web.

I=E2=80=99d be okay with cURL were it not for the API, I guess. =
Actually, if we=E2=80=99re to keep HTTP stream wrappers and keep using =
cURL, then the HTTP stream wrapper should probably also use cURL, right?

>> HTTP, and it should share code between its server-side HTTP and
>> client-side HTTP stuff. I don=E2=80=99t think that the HTTP stream =
wrappers
>> are a =E2=80=9Chack=E2=80=9D - they=E2=80=99re what PHP should have =
had all along. I think we
>=20
> HTTP stream wrappers work for some cases, but not for all and for =
cases
> where you need deep involvement with details of HTTP - like headers,
> byteranges, content encodings, etc. - they might not be the best API =
to
> deal with it.

This is true. The main thing I like about HTTP stream wrappers is that =
they=E2=80=99re part of core PHP rather than some external library. =
Also, they support headers, have done for ages.=20

Thanks.

--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/