Unfulfilled promises... forever experimental extensions... all over again

-----Original Message-----
From: Rasmus Lerdorf [mailto:rasmus@php.net]
Your initial message didn't include a single proposed
solution. The only
thing that could even be considered close is the very last sentence:

Hopefully belts will be tightened up around the extensions and the
responsibility taken up by their authors.

If there is something else in there that you consider a
proposal, please
point me at it.

That is one path that should be considered...how to,if at
all possible, tighten things up around extensions that are made
available as part of standard distribution. Make them show stoppers
if thats what is needed. The reason I left it slightly high level
was to let others also do some thinking.
This path would need more community feedback as to how to
acceptably do it ...if it can be done.

The second suggestion was in the second last paragraph in my 2nd email.

2nd sugesstion is an excellent way to tighten things up. But since this
is a community, lets see if the community likes it or what other
effective alternatives they can think of.

-Roshan

-----Original Message-----
From: Naik, Roshan
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 2:14 PM
To: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: RE: [PHP-DEV] Unfulfilled promises... forever experimental
extensions... all over again

Rasmus wrote:

Really ? Are you sure ?
http://www.zend.com/zend/week/week146.php

Ok, one self-serving fix.

I was (again) expecting exactly that kind of response. I dont
understand why so much arrogance exists among a select few. And
it unfortunately reflects the community's attitude.

So nobody till date or in future will benefit from the fix right ?
A self-serving fix may be today. But a problem waiting to happen
on other platforms anytime(if not happened already).
But lets leave that issue off to the side, its a red herring as
far as the central issue here is concerned.

Rasmus wrote:

So, how about proposing an actual solution instead of pissing
off the very
people who you will need help from to improve things?

I dont beleive all the people are being pissed off. They are just
not speaking up their concerns (given up hope?)
I dont see why anyone pointing out a problem is pissing you off.
Perhaps then every individual filing a bug report
should be pissing you off too. They should be asked to
go fix it themselves...and not bother anyone here as they are
not part of the "inner-circle" or "the community".

Rasmus wrote:

Some don't contribute anything, but they
are still part of this community. By being part of the
community you have
a voice and through our extremely open approach you can
easily contribute
your code and ideas.

In theory. But clear evidence to the contrary here.

Rasmus wrote:

This
solution may
be a set of general criteria an extension has to meet to leave its
experimental state, a set of test tools, or a group of
developers that you
convince with your obvious social skills to contribute to
this effort.

I am glad to see a slight progress from "please bring up
concrete problems" to "please bring up actual solutions"

I already proposed a couple solutions in my 1st and 2nd emails.
Please review them again. More solutions will come once people
take up the problem seriously.

Thomas wrote:

Actually, MS has a responsibility to make money, and as you
said, there is
no way get everybody over to FF.

Also it is not entirely correct to say that no one behind
the curtains of PHP internals isn't making money off of PHP.
Some do some dont..directly or indirectly. But this topic is also a
red herring to the central discussion. So lets leave it alone.

Rasmus wrote:

Then you better put on some protection, because this isn't going to
change. Like I said, we develop software for ourselves, not for
customers.

Not all opensource projects suffer from the same
problems that PHP (more accurately a select few here)
is exhibiting.

As the previosly quoted user said ....

<quote> "Open Source" is a philosophy. It shouldn't be an excuse. </quote>

We welcome contributions, but we react rather badly when
people come along and demand that we volunteer more of our time.

So far no one demanded to volunteer more time. Just requested
to prioritize things that more important, higher.

In much of the propaganda about PHP5 I read, Did i read anything
outright calling out the fact that "php5 is not backward compatible" ?
no!

Nor did I see anything that said, "hey we have these new features,
but you have to fix them before using them". If someone else
in "real life" did that to you... you would be upset too.

PHP releases seem to be driven more by whats important for the "oomph
factor" to make a big splash. Clearly something has to be learnt from
the other lowly languages.

In another mail (about apache2 support) I saw PHP's virtues
being extolled
as "PHP is the glue". And that its strong point is that it
allows users
to tie all kinds of disparate functionality ( xml , image
editing, etc )
together.

The quality of most of that "glue" and its usefulness is
being question.
And some evidently dont like it.

Andi wrote:

I suggest we stop this thread now. It's just taking up time
we could use to
more fruitfully in improving PHP. Please move any further
rants off the
internals mailing list and keep them personal.

So these are all "useless rants" and wont improve PHP ? I
hope its a personal
opinion. This is a nice way to snub off concrete problems.

Andi wrote:

I do think that if there are some concrete suggestions to
be heard that's
fine, but try and keep it short, to the point, and constructive.

So none of the suggestions were constructive ? or perhaps you didnt
read them.

Andi wrote:

Personally, I agree that the "Fix it yourself" argument is
not a good one
and isn't always relevant

Acknowledged several times before...but agressively misused till date.

Andi wrote:

, but if you'd look not at what developers say
after you piss them off with such emails,

Why does it piss them off ? What is "such emails" ? This is
nothing personal.
A select few are indeed taking it personally. But I dont beleive this
reflects the community at large.

This is purely bringing up an issue that is a problem in
"real life" and
is not a problem for "the experimenting engineer".

Andi wrote:

but how the PHP development team
has worked in real life,

Thats a blanket generalization...to the point of aggressive
ignorance and
silly complacency.

This is nothing but a "real life" problem we are talking about.

So far.. some people seem to be interested in attacking
peripheral issues
like ... "you didnt contribute a damn thing" ...."this is a
useless rant"
"nobody is making money here" ..."fix it youself" ..."not a
good quote"
... "thats a self-serving fix"

In another 2 years (on the 6th epxerimental birthday for sockets )
and PHP6 is released, everyone will have forgotten about what
PHP5 didnt deliver ...or even less of what PHP4 promised &
didnt deliver.
Somebody will again notice the repetition of promises
and point it out ... and get snubbed.

Such snubbing off is the prime reason why most people prefer to
stay quiet right now. I remember aggressive (but weak) justifications
to why PHP's OO model was the right way for PHP .. and now
here we are!

Hiding (in the bowels of documentation and source code)
the fact that the "banner features" are not ready
... is dishonesty. Lets not do that.

-Roshan