Re: Play nice! Re: Savant/Flexy/Foo template engines

Lukas Smoith wrote:

Paul M Jones wrote:

I want to play nice, I really do; I hope my concession and negotiation messages have advertised that fact. A unified template system will help not only me but everyone else in PEAR and PHP land -- but Savant has got to be in PEAR for it to start working unification magic. I hope there are enough positive votes in the end to outweigh the negative. Every positive vote helps. :-)

[snip] Sorry I have a hard time to see where you are looking out for PEAR. You are trying to squeeze your stuff in (I am not saying that there is a need for the basic feature set you proposed). I guess this is a valid approach but don't label this cooperation.

Lukas is right, Paul. It sounds like everyone agrees that the best thing for PEAR would be to sit down and sketch out a lightweight system that can be extended with compiler functionality. Having a class that conforms to a basic Template interface (but not real interface, since this is PHP4) would be a great starting point. Having competing APIs that deliver the same functionality is not a starting point; it's a mess. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of competing packages, but everyone seems to be in agreement that the best thing for PEAR would be to come up with a rock-solid template strategy. If you want to just propose a competing package, that's cool, but it certainly doesn't facilitate any bigger picture strategy. Lukas, I think you should be a stronger leader -- nay, dictator, of PEAR. I'm serious. I've leveraged lots of attacks on PEAR becaues I felt it was exclusionary, but this is only valid if PEAR aims to be something like CPAN -- a collection of libraries where there's little cost of entry, little code requirements, and no real big picture. I like the idea of a free & open community, but perhaps that belongs somewhere else. It seems to me more & more that PEAR really wants to be cohesive, and in that case I think there needs to be more control, not less. People are welcome to create their own more open repositories for PHP code if they don't like PEAR policies. I suggest, and I'm not trying to start any flame wars here, that two things might help the PEAR identity crisis: 1. establish that PEAR aims to be cohesive and provide inter-operating and stable packages above all else. I just don't feel that this is stated in a clear way -- which leads for things like a desire for competing packages. Things don't have to be democratic (perhaps leaders should be elected, but after that no). 2. At the same time, make the next version of the PEAR installer also a lot more flexible. PEAR right now has a monopoloy on easy-network-installed packages to /usr/local/lib/php and this isn't right either. Allow people to add their own channel information in the form of URL or something (in other words, don't require that channels be sanctioned by PEAR). That way you have a tightly controlled repository of high-quality code (PEAR) and a nod of support for people to go out & establish their own repositories -- governed however they see fit. I'm just thinking out loud, of course, but it seems to me that a solution like this would satisfy both ends of the spectrum.

Anyways, Savant seems to becoming a reality in PEAR as unfortunately allot of people choose the quick fix over a better long term solution. Especially as Savant is so easy to install I don't understand why they are doing this.

A repository with clear goals of unification & cohesive software should not be driven democratically, IMO. If this package violages the vision of what PEAR desires, then it should be vetoed. And PEAR ought to be more than just a collection of voices of the developers who have contributed packages. From what I've heard in the past, PEAR Group might be an official voice of this vision. Perhaps there's a way to compromise and have members of PEAR Group elected by the devs, but have decisions like package acceptance left up to the group alone. I fear that this will start many oppinionated emails, which isn't really my intent. I've just seen a lot of disagreement about what PEAR means. I like open communities, but if this is not the PEAR vision then what I would really like is for PEAR to just enable other communities by allowing new sources (like apt) to be added to the installer. What does it mean to be "accepted" by PEAR? Well, what I think it should mean is that your package is a tool that fits into a bigger picture. There are, unfortunately, many other reasons why people would want to have their package in PEAR -- visibility, ease of installation. If some of these other reasons were removed (e.g. by adding those installer customization options, and by providing links to other pear-installable packages, kinda like the horde thing but more formalized) then there'd be a lot less at stake and a lot less bitterness when a package was refused on the grounds that it doesn't fit. I respect both sides of the argument here. I've certainly argued with Paul before that PEAR is too controlled, but as I said that only makes sense if PEAR abandons its vision. I think there's room to make everyone happy (and PEAR better). Does any of that make sense? Hans