Re: Re: cvs: php4 / TODO-4.1.txt

At 08:13 AM 4/19/2001 -0400, Stig Sæther Bakken wrote:

[Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com>] Right but if we chose XML this makes it much harder to have C clients (even Perl because the module might not be installed). I don't think

        ^^^^

Over my dead body. Take a look at all the magazines reviewing which web development tools to use. Most of them end up with PHP because it fits their job. Imagine all the fun authors of such articles can have it PHP requires Perl to install the stuff you need. it will be such a complicated format for us to need XML here especially as it limits what clients will be created. I think it needs more thought. Having a prototype for the functionality is OK but not if you're talking about a prototype which sets the standard. XML is a commodity today. Just take a look at what the industry out there is using.

If we were to write it in C we would most likely need to provide a statically linked binary anyway for the different platforms as not everyone will have access to a fully functioning development environment.

If they are compiling PHP and PHP extensions we can expect them to be able to compile an ANSI C program.

Despite the pervasiveness of Perl, chances are high that certain Perl modules would be missing and then someone has to go looking for Perl modules to install PHP packages.. Ouch!

You can do this kind of stuff with the Vanilla Perl and don't need extensions. To be quite blunt, I don't have the time to implement this in C. I've tried to get people involved in the strategy for PEAR for months and months. It's typical that nobody reacts until after implementation has started though. I want to get this system up and running sooner rather than later, so I'm willing to make something that we throw away and reimplement rather than to not have something for one more year.

I think you are right. BTW, how are you planning on making it as transparent as possible for a user who downloads PHP and wants to compile it with PEAR C-extensions such as XML, MySQL & Oracle (these are just examples, it doesn't reflect my opinion if these should stay in or out of the php tree itself)? Andi