Re: Re: Hold off 5.4

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> wrote: > I'll begin again by saying I don't feel strongly about renaming 5.4 as 7.0, but there > are some important points worth bringing up: > > 1. The motivation for changing major version numbers was *never* BC breakage.  It was > substantial language changes/additions and sometimes substantial underlying engine changes.  BC > breakage was typically a side effect of that. No, but it was the main reasons. > 2.  Marketing does not equate Evil.  There's nothing bad about making good moves that > improve the perception of PHP in its userbase or the world at large.  Turning the current trunk > version into a major version can be perceived as a 'marketing' move - but that > doesn't mean it's not legit.  Other than showing that the PHP project is moving along, > there's also the warm-fuzzy-feeling aspect, and based on the last couple of days it's > clear I'm not the only one that feels bad about being stuck in 5.x for over 6 years with no > change in sight. Right, and it was not meant badly. Only that it has no technical or features-wise reasons to do so but brings its lots of risks with it. > 3. The motivation to skip 6 doesn't stem from marketing at all.  The main motivation is > that there's a VERY concrete perception amongst many users about what PHP 6 is. Leaving the very small conference crowd for a second: nobody never ever heard of php6 before the total fiasco a couple of months ago. > What we call that version, whether it's PHP 5.4, PHP 7.0 or even PHP 3000, shouldn't > change the way we discuss contents for it.  The fact I want to call the very same thing we intend > to release with a different name has absolutely nothing to do with the pains we experimented with > 5.3 or 6.0. Let say I know us too good and I don't think moving it to a major version will be of any help. > We can agree to disagree (and again - whatever - I'm fine with 5.4!), Right, but I really don't like that the feelings, wishes, requests and will of most of the active developers seem to be totally ignored by a couple of us. That's not what I like to see in a project like php.net. There is clearly a need to change the way we work, communicate and decide things (be releases, features, etc.). Like it or not, that's a fact. Other example, you do not want this type hinting, but what do you do to change that? Why do you simply ignore it? > but no need to invent unrelated horror stories :) Invent horror stories? Maybe you should take a bit more parts of the day to day releases and development to see that they are not invented stories :). Cheers, -- Pierre @pierrejoye | http://blog.thepimp.net | http://www.libgd.org