Re: Extending Net/

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Chuck Hagenbuch wrote: > Quoting Joey Smith <joey@joeysmith.com>: > > > You're right, PHP already had native support for many of the things I > > mentioned. But PHP already has support for Sybase and MySQL natively, > > why would I want to use PEAR's DB_mysql? > > Okay - but I think there's a difference there. Different database > servers are still SQL (well, mostly :/ ); I'm hard pressed to think of > a similar example where you'd want the same logic/code and just switch > in a different driver, on a general level. I can think of plenty of > application-specific reasons for doing so - preferences storage, etc - > but those, IMHO, don't belong in PEAR. > > Maybe people _do_ want these wrappers. And that's fine, and if they're > made, yes, they should go into Net/. I'm just not convinced yet of > their worth. One of the problems I've seen with PHP that could easily be solved by PEAR is the inconsistencies with the function names. While a wrapper around existing functionality might produce overhead, the ease of use might pay off for the programmer in the end. The logic for something like this is that if the programmer is truly worried about the overhead incurred by using the wrappers in PEAR for certain things, then they wouldn't be using wrappers at all, DB or not. Anyone sufficiently concerned with performance is gonna skip over PEAR alltogether. Besides, with cache engines popping up all over the place, I think the overhead of PEAR might be significantly minimized to the point that it wouldn't be _THAT MUCH_ of a concern. Maintaining consistency is a wonderful thing. It allows someone to worry less about figuring out what it takes to do something and simply focus oh how to do it. I think it would be a good thing to have wrapper functions for various things. The trick is deciding when you're going overboard and when you're actually adding functionality. I am in complete agreement that PEAR should not become a kitchen-sink repository, but I don't think that simple wrappers (within reason) would violate that at all. -peace --- BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK ----------+---------- GAT d- s:+ !a C++$ UL/S/I/B++++$ P+ | "In the ongoing battle between objects L++ E- W+(+++) N K- w(---) O-- M@ | made of aluminum going hundreds of V(--) PS+++ PE Y+ PGP@ t++ 5 X+ R- | miles per hour and the ground going tv+ b- DI++++ D+(+++) G e>++ h--- | zero, the ground has yet to lose." r++ z+>+++ - END GEEK CODE BLOCK ---+