Re: What is the use of "unicode.semantics" in PHP 6?

On 6/19/07, Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com> wrote:

Pierre wrote: On 6/19/07, Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com> wrote:

But this is no different from writing code that will work on both PHP 5 and PHP 6. The only difference is that instead of checking for PHP 5 you will be checking for Unicode. Like I said, we don't want the Unicode decision to be synonymous with PHP 5 vs. PHP 6 because then the non-Unicode folks will never get the benefits of the non-Unicode improvements in PHP 6 and we would be forced to support PHP 5 for a lot longer. We really stretch our already thing resources in order to support multiple branches, so anything we can do to get as many people as possible onto the same codebase helps us a lot.

Just as a last (hopefully) comment, even if nothing seemed to have an influence, no matter how many we are to prefer a unicode only mode (so far only you are in favour of it, maybe Andree too but I don't remember his opinion on this topic :). Uh, this was agreed upon by everyone involved in the design of the Unicode support. So saying I am the only one is extremely misleading. I may be the only one explaining why the decision was reached, but I am certainly not the only one in favour of it.

Sorry, I did not know that there was many "externals" people involved in the unicode design Who was involved? Almost all "core" developers I asked are against (anyone having a different view, please step in).

The gain we hope to have by keeping a non unicode mode is about having more users moving to PHP6. I would like to know why it will work better than with php5, any thoughts? By not providing it, we ensure that a large number of people will not move to PHP 6. At least by providing it we give ourselves a chance. I think if we drop it we are basically giving up and we will be maintaining 2 code bases for the next 10 years. Do we really want that?

We maintain three branches since a couple of years, having only two is a real progress. PHP4's one is dying, it was about time. I can live with two branches and code base for php-src, I have to maintain three or more branches in many pecl extensions anyway :)

And let forget that maintaining (and develop/implement) these two modes will obviously take more time. More time than maintaining separate Unicode and non-Unicode code bases in difference branches?

Yes, code base is cleaner when the two are in two separate branches, it is easier to merge too. That's a feeling only, I never timed each merge or change :) --Pierre