Re: Seeking direction

On 2006 09 15 13:38, Alexey Borzov wrote:

Hi, Alan Langford wrote:

Obviously there's a lot that needs to be done to get PHP5 versions of a lot of packages ready, and since this is keeping me from my objectives, I'd like to help. I don't want to go duplicating effort, so the question is: is there someone coordinating this work? Where is a good place to start?

I doubt anyone is coordinating the work. As for the place to start, writing to pear-dev is a good enough start since most of the developers read that and they usually know whether some work is being done on their packages. :] Please note, as Justin already said, rewrite to PHP5 will not usually be just using protected / private / static modifiers where needed and switching from PEAR_Error to PEAR_Exception. It will include major refactoring and probably API change.

I'm aware it's not just a matter of tweaking. I have a heck of a lot of work to do on my end as well. For example, I have my own implementations of XML_Tree, XML_RPC and a Captcha tool that were written before I fully discovered the Joys of PEAR; these have to be ported/replaced and the changes propagated through the rest of my code.

And also some comments on your package list:

Here's my current list of installed packages. Obviously working on some of these is my preference: Archive_Tar Auth_SASL Console_Getopt DB

Deprecated in favour of MDB2.

HTML_Common

http://pear.php.net/package/HTML_Common2

HTML_QuickForm

http://pear.php.net/package/HTML_QuickForm2 it is being rewritten for PHP5, but don't hold your breath just yet. if you are interested, the development is (sorta) coordinated in this wiki: http://quickform.mamasam.com/wiki/

HTML_Template_IT HTML_Template_PHPLIB HTML_Template_Sigma

I'm going to do a PHP5 version, but that'll be after QuickForm2.

HTTP HTTP_Request

There are several reasons for not starting the port right now: * Philippe Jausions is supposedly working on a cURL backend for HTTP_Request. It will be better to port both backends when that is ready * Dependencies aren't there * HTTP_Request for PHP5 should probably be built from scratch, current architecture isn't that good

Log MDB2 Mail Mail_Mime Net_SMTP Net_Socket Net_URL

http://cvs.php.net/viewvc.cgi/pear/Net_URL2/ dunno why it wasn't registered / released on the website

PEAR

PEAR-the-base-class is not needed in PHP5, as for the installer, you shouldn't really care whether it's E_STRICT or not.

PHP_Beautifier XML_Beautifier XML_Parser

Is it needed in PHP5?

XML_RPC

http://pear.php.net/package/XML_RPC2

XML_Util

Is it needed in PHP5?

Most of the packages you list in the "is it needed" category were installed as dependencies. Even with a few reads through the newsgroups, it looks like I'm only about 33% up to speed. Typical. I think what I will do is move my existing PEAR install into a PHP4 directory, then pull a clean new install into a PHP5 directory (from CVS as required). Then I can go through step by step reworking my code to make it E_STRICT PHP5. When I get stuck at some point in the middle, I'll know where I can help best on the PEAR side.