Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:83377
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: unknown (pb1.pair.com: domain php.net does not designate 212.27.42.2 as permitted sender)
Reply-To: <francois@php.net>
To: "'Pierre Joye'" <pierre.php@gmail.com>,
	"'Anthony Ferrara'" <ircmaxell@gmail.com>,
	"Zeev Suraski" <zeev@zend.com>
Cc: "'Larry Garfield'" <larry@garfieldtech.com>,
	<internals@lists.php.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2015 06:35:53 +0100
Message-ID: <05b001d04d98$42f53bc0$c8dfb340$@php.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Thread-Index: AdBNlt3kYEqwgCjiRB6FjISnn8sRFA==
Content-Language: fr
Subject: Deadline for 7.0 (was: Reviving scalar type hints)
From: francois@php.net (=?utf-8?Q?Fran=C3=A7ois_Laupretre?=)

Hi Pierre,

> De : Pierre Joye [mailto:pierre.php@gmail.com]
>
> I do think we should. We are exactly at the point I was afraid to
> reach with the unrealistic planning for 7. Engine is somehow stable
> from an API changes point of view, so other can start to work on a
> couple of key features. But it is too late. Let face it, some features
> (like your RFC) will never make it post 7.0. We have to be realistic
> about how things work now.

Agreed. It was announced 4 months from November but in such case, it is =
much too short. On the other side, the vote for the 7.0 timeline got 34 =
yes and 2 no. So, I assume people knew what they were doing. The RFC =
heavily insists on the need to keep the timeline as short as possible, =
so there probably was a reason, although it is not clearly explained.

My main concern is not about not being able to have my RFCs approved for =
the date, at least not directly. My concern is about the new features =
we'll announce. That's a major version. Everyone will talk about it. We =
have a communication window that won't open again before years. After =
the PHP 6 adventure, we'd better not fail this one ! So, what's the =
killer feature ? What do we put forward ? What do we base our =
communication on ? What do we want papers to talk about ? phpng ? That's =
great work, but low level, not much to sell except boring statistics ;), =
I may be wrong but, IMO, not much to explain to the average user: "Look, =
that's faster, do you want to know why ? Absolutely not, thank you". =
People want *features*, and we don't have so many to sell. Looking at =
the list of RFCs for 7.0, most are minor from a user's pov, or too =
low-level to communicate on.

Putting that in parallel with the recent activity on the list saddens me =
a bit, because several projects are coming, that can make a difference : =
STH (any version), of course, but also DbC, annotations, expectations. =
Named parameters would be great too if Nikita is OK. Parser extension =
API is a little low level for the average user but very interesting too. =
This is all recent, as Pierre explained, because most of these people =
were busy testing the core one month ago.

Now, if we stick to March 15, most of this won't go to 7.0 and some can =
even be lost forever. I hear some saying that, if it does not go to 7.0, =
it will be for 7.1. I disagree : a good part of this will be killed by =
BC breaks and the communication window will be closed by 7.1. 'PHP 7 =
features' will be announced everywhere. Definitely not the same for a =
minor version.

So, it's time to make a decision. My opinion is that, if we want to =
build a good feature list, we need more than 2-3 weeks. I would say =
roughly another 4 month : not too short, not too long.

Thoughts ?

Regards

Fran=C3=A7ois