cvs: pearweb /weeklynews 20030119.en.html

pajoye Sat Jan 18 20:35:39 2003 EDT Modified files: /pearweb/weeklynews 20030119.en.html Log: Add ssb interview Add links Index: pearweb/weeklynews/20030119.en.html diff -u pearweb/weeklynews/20030119.en.html:1.4 pearweb/weeklynews/20030119.en.html:1.5 --- pearweb/weeklynews/20030119.en.html:1.4 Fri Jan 17 11:48:50 2003 +++ pearweb/weeklynews/20030119.en.html Sat Jan 18 20:35:38 2003 @@ -8,20 +8,121 @@ <i> <small> by - Mika Tuupola (tuupola@appelsiini.net) + Mika Tuupola (tuupola@appelsiini.net), Pierre-Alain Joye (paj@pearfr.org) </small> </i> </p> <p> To celebrate the fact PEAR out of beta and as of PHP 4.3 PEAR installer - is included by default, Weekly News is revived again. This weeks news - include details on voting for proposed packages, PEAR tutorial on Mac OS X, - new phpdoc templates and missing PEAR installer from Windows binary - distribution. As a time of writing there has been eight new releases - this week. + is included by default, Weekly News is revived again. As a preface to + this first weekly news, please find an interwiew of Stig S. Backen, + the founder of the PEAR project.<br \><br \> + This week news include details on voting for proposed packages, + PEAR tutorial on Mac OS X, new phpdoc templates and missing PEAR + installer from Windows binary distribution. As a time of writing there + has been eight new releases this week. </p> +<hr> +<h2>AN INTERVIEW OF STIG BAKKEN</h2> +<small> + by Pierre-Alain Joye (paj@pearfr.org) +</small> +<h3>Who's Stig Bakken ?</h3> + Stig (30) has been working with Unix and web stuff for the last 10 + years. Since 1999 he has worked as a senior software engineer at Fast + Search & Transfer (FAST) in Trondheim, Norway. FAST is Google's main + competitor in the OEM search market, and Stig is the technical lead for + FAST's multimedia search product. See http://www.alltheweb.com/ + (written in PHP of course) for a demonstration. +<br\> + +<h3>What's PEAR ?</h3> + PEAR is a PHP spin-off project that aims to provide several things:</li> + <li \>* a library of high-quality, reusable PHP code and extensions</li> + <li \>* coding guidelines that help create components with consistent APIs</li> + <li >* a packaging, distribution and installation framework for these components + The acronym stands for "PHP Extension and Application Repository". + We made up the acronym before the meaning of course.</li> + +<h3>What's PECL</h3> + PECL (the PHP Extension Code Library) is a subset of PEAR for + traditional PHP extensions written in C or C++. +<br \> + +<h3> + What is the relation between PHP and PEAR/PECL, we have seen a lot + of extensions moving from PHP to PECL (and it seems more will move + in the futur) ? +</h3> + +More and more extensions move to PECL, and by the time PHP 5 is out, +most extensions will have been pickled ("PECL'ed"). This is first of +all a project management change for PHP. Future versions of PHP will +still bundle lots of extensions, they will be imported from PECL during +the PHP release process and included in the release tarball. +<br \><br \> +The reason we do this is to make PHP's release process manageable. +Today a PHP release takes several months. By importing stable releases +of extensions in PECL, we will have fewer unknowns that need to be +tested during PHP's QA process, because the extensions from PECL have +already been through their own QA. Hopefully this will reduce the PHP +release process to weeks rather than months, and increase the general +quality of all extensions bundled with PHP. +<br \><br \> +Also, if extensions are built shared (not compiled directly into PHP, +but as dynamically loadable libraries), it will be possible to upgrade +individual extensions without upgrading PHP. +<br \> + +<h3> + What are the differences between the core PEAR (package manager, core + modules) and the rest of PEAR ? +</h3> +The "core" packages bundled with PHP are of two types: those required +for the installer, and a set of packages that are of high quality and +considered of common interest. The latter set of packages is the start +of what hopefully will become the "PHP Foundation Classes" (PFC). +<br \> + +<h3>May the package manager and the package definition may be used by + any PHP developper for their project, private or commercial ? +</h3> + Anyone can set up their own copy of the pear.php.net web site and use it + for distributing in-house PHP components. There are several projects + already that are starting to use the PEAR tools for their own purposes. +<br \> + +<h3> + What are the next main achievements for PEAR ? +</h3> + First of all, the Windows installer support has to be solid. Due to + xmas vacation and some bad timing, the 4.3.0 Windows installer was + shipped without PEAR. 4.3.1 will fix this. + + We need to get win32 binary releases of PECL packages out. + + Then we need to get a portable package signature infrastructure up and + running, so people can feel comfortable with installing binary + releases. This is way harder for PEAR than it is for say RPM, because + the PEAR installer runs on a myriad of platforms and PHP configurations. + + And there is lots of work ahead in making a PHP 5 migration plan. +<br \> +<h3> + More and more people are involved in the PEAR community, by adding + new functionnalities or alternative competitive packages, how do you + manage it ? +</h3> +We have a voting process on the pear-dev mailing list, where people +actually collect votes for a specific package name. Usually, packages +are not rejected, even if they overlap with some other package. But +since we have a single mailing list for PEAR developers, authors of +"competing" packages find eachother quickly and find a good solution by +their own initiative. My own role is just to nudge the community in the +right direction from time to time. +<br \> <hr> <h2>PEAR-DEV traffic</h2> @@ -44,6 +145,7 @@ You can also find instructions on how you can: install and use PEAR package manager, generate developer documentation from phpdoc and last but not least how to use PEAR classes in you applications. + Additionnal link:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.phpmac.com/">PHP and Mac</a> </p> <p> The tutorial could be used as a guide for installing PEAR on traditional