[RFC][DISCUSSION] Removal of dead SAPIs and extensions

Here are the issues with master (008 is rounding issue so you can ignore
for the moment)

FAILED TEST SUMMARY

InterBase: BLOB test [ext/interbase/tests/004.phpt]
InterBase: transactions [ext/interbase/tests/005.phpt]
InterBase: array handling [ext/interbase/tests/007.phpt]
InterBase: event handling [ext/interbase/tests/008.phpt]
ibase_trans(): Basic test [ext/interbase/tests/ibase_trans_001.phpt]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 9:33 PM, marius adrian popa mapopa@gmail.com
wrote:

interbase extension is maintained and at least i will rename to firebird
after php7 api conversion is over (a few blob/events tests don't pass after
the big api changes )

Dmitry Stogov https://plus.google.com/u/0/114466583226539257267?prsrc=4 added
some patches but we need to fix the zend engine api changes

pdo_firebird is ok but doesn't cover the firebird api so we still need
them both

At least one mail didn't bounce.

The situation with Interbase extension, in my opinion: it's dead meat and
should most probably be just removed. Nobody is currently, to my knowledge,
maintaining it. Even the birth of said extension was a bit troublesome,
when I had just for the fun of it written some very rudimentary code,
committed it, and after that it turned out that Zeev was having a
commercial negotiation about writing PHP support for it. Because we didn't
want to step on each other toes, that left the the extension somewhat
unmaintained for a while even then, and then I slowly dropped out of PHP
development. Mostly because my new work in banking world had absolutely
nothing to do with it, not because I would have been tired of it. It was
extraordinarily fun and I somehow still miss those times. Kudos to everyone
still working on PHP (I still recognize a few names on the mailing list)
and to every newcomer.

Now, this all happened when even PHP4 was still in development phase, a
very long time ago, so I'm quite surprised that extension survived even
into PHP5. Has anyone actually maintained it?

PDO_FIREBIRD is probably a good replacement for it and it seems to be
mentioned on the list of maintained extensions. I don't know how well it
works with Interbase, which is now a proprietary product by Embarcadero
Technologies. Firebird is an open source fork originating from the same
codebase. It might even work, if the communication protocol with database
hasn't changed (much) or can switch to some backwards compatible mode when
encountering a version it does not recognize.

And, last: funny coincidence that I received Anatol's email just now,
when I've just a week ago opened a github account and already have several
pull requests for 2 projects written in, surpricingly, PHP. Who knows,
maybe like the Terminator, "I'll be back".

Thanks for reading the rants of a really old fart.

-- Jouni Ahto

Hi Dmitry,

Hi Anatol,

Despite of this, we also have few extensions not converted to PHP7 yet -
https://wiki.php.net/phpng#unsupported_extensions_not_converted_yet

3 of them related to MSSQL, 2 to Oracle and one to Interbase. the last
one is partially converted (may be compiled), but it's so ugly, so it
won't work without serious redesign (I'm not sure how it worked in
php-5).

I'm going to rename and update the RFC to handle these cases as well.

Will first forward this off list to the authors standing in the sources,
so the bounces from the eventually non existent mails are not going back
to the list (would spam everyone). But will then repeat the same to the
list with valid mails.

Regards

Anatol

Ok, in that case I'll take back some of my words. Would you please
remove my name from the maintainers if it is still there? I don't expect
to be able to contribute or fix anything anymore.

-- Jouni Ahto

interbase extension is maintained and at least i will rename to firebird
after php7 api conversion is over (a few blob/events tests don't pass after
the big api changes )

Dmitry Stogov https://plus.google.com/u/0/114466583226539257267?prsrc=4 added
some patches but we need to fix the zend engine api changes

pdo_firebird is ok but doesn't cover the firebird api so we still need them
both

At least one mail didn't bounce.

The situation with Interbase extension, in my opinion: it's dead meat and
should most probably be just removed. Nobody is currently, to my knowledge,
maintaining it. Even the birth of said extension was a bit troublesome,
when I had just for the fun of it written some very rudimentary code,
committed it, and after that it turned out that Zeev was having a
commercial negotiation about writing PHP support for it. Because we didn't
want to step on each other toes, that left the the extension somewhat
unmaintained for a while even then, and then I slowly dropped out of PHP
development. Mostly because my new work in banking world had absolutely
nothing to do with it, not because I would have been tired of it. It was
extraordinarily fun and I somehow still miss those times. Kudos to everyone
still working on PHP (I still recognize a few names on the mailing list)
and to every newcomer.

Now, this all happened when even PHP4 was still in development phase, a
very long time ago, so I'm quite surprised that extension survived even
into PHP5. Has anyone actually maintained it?

PDO_FIREBIRD is probably a good replacement for it and it seems to be
mentioned on the list of maintained extensions. I don't know how well it
works with Interbase, which is now a proprietary product by Embarcadero
Technologies. Firebird is an open source fork originating from the same
codebase. It might even work, if the communication protocol with database
hasn't changed (much) or can switch to some backwards compatible mode when
encountering a version it does not recognize.

And, last: funny coincidence that I received Anatol's email just now, when
I've just a week ago opened a github account and already have several pull
requests for 2 projects written in, surpricingly, PHP. Who knows, maybe
like the Terminator, "I'll be back".

Thanks for reading the rants of a really old fart.

-- Jouni Ahto

Hi Dmitry,

Hi Anatol,

Despite of this, we also have few extensions not converted to PHP7 yet -
https://wiki.php.net/phpng#unsupported_extensions_not_converted_yet

3 of them related to MSSQL, 2 to Oracle and one to Interbase. the last
one is partially converted (may be compiled), but it's so ugly, so it
won't work without serious redesign (I'm not sure how it worked in
php-5).

I'm going to rename and update the RFC to handle these cases as well.
Will first forward this off list to the authors standing in the sources,
so the bounces from the eventually non existent mails are not going back
to the list (would spam everyone). But will then repeat the same to the
list with valid mails.

Regards

Anatol

pdo_firebird is ok but doesn't cover the firebird api so we still need them
both

And I would add to that - PDO does not allow cross database transactions
which is another area interbase/firebird can utilise. It's particularly
useful archiving historic data to a secondary database.

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL

Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk

interbase extension is maintained and at least i will rename to firebird
after php7 api conversion is over (a few blob/events tests don't pass after
the big api changes )

There are two questions, maintained or dead cow.

My worries about some of them listed are about the barrier to apply
any kind of non trivial fixes and the use of this extension. For
firebird, it is slightly less of a pain because the Firebird DB is
relatively easy to setup while being a real niche server. Oracle,
Sqlserver are easier cases. My feeling is that they are better in
pecl, giving the maintainers more freedom to fix, improve, release,
etc than being in the core while it can reduce the workload and
overall quality in the core in the development phase.

In any case, just like a couple of discussions lately, it is a taste
matter. Imap or mcrypt, both dead cows, should go away. Let wait the
required delay and move to vote. The sooner we take a decision the
better.

Cheers,
Pierre