Re: "Mission Statement"

> At 17:16 21-11-00, Sascha Schumann wrote: > > > I don't think that a compiler spec is useful, helping Microsoft's .NET (or > > > other forking bodies, like GPL fanatics) team isn't on my agenda either and > > > I don't think that it would be beneficial for the PHP project at all (and > > > I'm sure most people here feel the same). There's theory, and there's > > > reality, and the spec you're talking about is a purely theoretical, > > > useful-for-forking, fairly-useless-for-practical-use type of spec. > > > > You should not be worried about your investment into Zend. > > The Zend engine will still be the number one choice for a > > long time. If the engine maintains its technical lead, users > > will stay with you and your product folio. > > I'm not worried - I don't see the point in aiming at a document that would > help forks, though. Forks are not such an unlikely thing to happen (e.g., > that GPL fanatic guy that mailed group@ the other day). I'm not really > worried about him, but I sure don't want to help him breaking PHP up. If a fork happens, I would rather have a compatible fork that an incompatible one. If someone else builds something that can take any PHP script and run it perfectly, more power to them. I don't think the existence of a document like this is going to encourage nor discourage a fork. And this certainly should not be an argument against writing an accurate spec. > > Can you name me any language which was harmed by a > > standardization effort? > > I don't know really, I haven't studied languages history. I know that what > the users would want is a user-oriented document, and not a > compiler-spec. A compiler spec will probably not be too harmful (even > though it'll encourage forks, to some degree), but I agree with Rasmus that > this should not be the main concern of this forum. I think we have all agreed already that the document should include a concise description of the language in some sort of standard language description syntax. This is basically a compiler spec if that is what you want to call it. And along with that we have end-user oriented notes and examples. And as I said before, if Sascha only wants to write the "compiler spec" part of it, I don't see that being a problem. Others can pitch in with examples and notes. -Rasmus