Re: Re: one abstraction layer (my proposal for)

On Mon, 2001-12-03 at 19:19, Manuel Lemos wrote: > Hello, > > Paul Cooper wrote: > > > Anyway, things like this are part of the reason why I proposed wrapping > > > PEAR-DB around Metabase API. It would certainly be a solution that would > > > be feasable and reliable in much less time than your proposal takes to > > > accomplish. More on this below. Now for other comments... > > > > > > > Manuel, this PR problem will exist whether or not PEAR includes Metabase > > or not. As I understand it Metabase currently is a fully functional > > database independent API + much more which no other language has and has > > been around for x years (where x > 2 right?). Even if Metabase were > > magically ported to C tomorrow and the native APIs done away with so > > that the only way to access a DB was through Metabase, this nonsense > > would still be spouted - and is easily refuted. There is bad PR like > > this about linux, apache, mysql, postgres, etc, etc yet AFIK no of these > > projects based a technical decision on PR (leave that to the proprietary > > software vendors). > > You are not yet getting the point. The main goal is not to port Metabase > to C but rather provide an officially sanctioned database abstraction > package that provide portability to database applications. The only > officially sanctioned database abstraction layer is PEAR-DB, but it does > not provide database portability now nor anytime soon. Wrapping PEAR-DB > around PEAR-DB would provide such portability. At the risk of playing ping pong, I think you aren't getting the point. All I'm trying to say is that whatever your main goal is if somehow it all happened by tomorrow it would not change the nonsense that some people write or say about PHP. Therefore you should not use such nonsense in your arguments for including metabase in PEAR - it is irrelevant. You and others have given plenty of sensible reasons why it's a good idea that have changed my mind from being skeptical to positive, from misunderstanding to understanding (not that my opinion is all that important, but still I like to know that this is happening for the right reasons). > Of course that is not all, it needs to clearly advertised wherever you > can that PHP would then have a portable database abstraction layer that > is distributed with PHP which for the users would still be PEAR-DB. > > The problem that I am telling that should be attacked is not the lies > sales people that push languages of products that compete with PHP. They > use half-truths to make their points and drag customers that PHP looses > because customers have no way to verify if sales people are telling them > complete truths. > > For instance, in that same site they claim that PHP is slow and was made > to be slow by Zend people because they would have a market to sell their > accellerators software. Part of this is true. Zend people sell > accelarator software, but that does not make PHP a slow solution. The > problem is that less informed customers, which is the majority of people > that does not know PHP but could be using it with advantage, do not know > that for instance PHP optimizer is free and even PHP 4 is reasonably > fast in comparision with other languages. Exactly - this claim is a lie. If Zend coders let themselves worry about this when making technical decisions then things would be a mess - let the Zend PR / sales people worry about that. > Likewise, it half true that PHP does not provide an abstraction layer > for developing portable applications. The full truth is that PEAR-DB > which is the only officially sanctioned database abstraction layer that > is distributed with PHP does not provide database application > portability, but there are other free database abstraction layers, like > Metabase that provide database portability. > > My proposal goes in the direction of fixing this mis-information so that > less informed customers do not fall for that apparent weakness of PHP of > lacking of a portable database abstraction layer. And the goal is not do > it now, not in more two years if you do not agree with the merit of what > I proposed. If PR is all you are worried about then you can easily counter act these lies now - PHP does have a portable database abstraction layer, it's called Metabase. Whether or not it is 'officially sanctioned' is a PR mind game that has, it seems, trapped you. Making Metabase 'official' would not change the their attitude one bit. If all you're worried about is PR then you should really drop this discussion because then they will be able to say that the PHP community can't agree on anything and all they do is argue (whereas I think we're moving to a solution). If Metabase was suddenly adopted then they would say that we can't make up our minds and keep changing major things (<aside> switching metabase for pear db is a little like linus changing VM in the middle a stable kernel release </aside>) or they would say "Yes they have a db abstraction layer but it's slow (which is done on purpose to sell more Zend products)". Or whatever we do PR will move onto other lies (PHP has no .NET support, etc, etc). Worrying about PR and reacting to it is the road to madness - concentrate on technical matters. Regards, Paul > Regards, > Manuel Lemos > > -- > PEAR Development Mailing List (http://pear.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: pear-dev-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: pear-dev-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net