Re: [PHP4BETA] php and MS SQL Server....

Manuel Lemos wrote: > > Hello Rasmus, > > On 01-Mar-00 06:38:58, you wrote: > > >> Anyway, the truth is that I see a large overlap not only on Stig's effort > >> to bring up an official database abstraction layer, but also to the whole > >> PEAR project. Think about it how many code repositories like CPAN you know > >> for PHP. I know David Sklar's PX for generic code, Boaz WeberDev for > >> example code, I have developed PHP Classes repository for PHP objects, > >> there are certainly others that I'm sorry to not recall right now. So why > >> another code repository? > > >That is exactly the reason. There are too many of them out there and we > >need a single well-managed one with an established development framework > >around it. ie. one where all changes are logged in CVS and bugs can be > > CVS? Why? AFAIK CPAN does not require contributors to put their code > under a CPAN managed CVS repository and I don't see a reason to have one. > > I'm afraid that if you are requiring contributors to put their code in your > CVS repository, you are automatocally discarding many potential > contributors that a) don't know CVS and don't want to learn it to be able > to contribute b) already have their own CVS repository and don't want to > have somebody else to take over it. > > Unless you mean to put only PHP code of core developers in the PEAR, I > don't see much point in putting contributors code in a CVS repository. > A simple upload form would be much simpler and would leave out many of > the potential contributors as you only need a Web browser, not a properly > set CVS client. We are not going to force people to put their things in the php4 CVS repository. Right now this is the way it is done, true, but it won't be this way for long. We are going the CPAN route and letting people distribute their packages from whatever site they like, but at the same time we will be offering a central place where you can find/download them, a set of rules/guidelines for quality and consistency and an index so there will hopefully not be too many wheel re-inventions. > >submitted in a single place. The code repositories out there are quite > >chaotic. > > Either you haven't been looking carefully or this is just a totally unfair > statement considering the hard work that has been put in the development of > the existing PHP code repositories. I speak for myself, but I guess I > could also speak for other PHP code repositories authors. > > For instance my PHP classes repository, code is divided by packages. Each > author may upload one or more packages. Each package consists of one or > more files. Each package may be classified in one or more groups and each > author may change that classification any time. > > A good thing, and a reason for which I did not use PX to upload my code, is > that when a new class is added or changed, users subscribed to the site get > notifications by e-mail regarding the changes that were done. This saves a lot > of time to users looking for the latest version of their favourite classes, > and authors notifying everybody. Soon, I will have a page that lists the > lately uploaded classes for people that don't want to get the notifications > by e-mail. > > You may also browse the existing classes by author and now there is a top > 10 chart page that list the most downloaded classes and authors for all > time and for the last week. This page is meant as small moral compensation > for authors that developed something useful and uploaded it to the PHP Classes > repository. > > Besides my PHP Classes Repository there is for instance, David Sklar's PX > which is also organized by different groups of code and with a simple > design it provides a large base of ready to use code. Boaz WeberDev has a > nice PHP example code section also properly organized. > > So, I don't see where you see the chaos in the existing PHP repositories > that you feel the need to have another built-in PHP distribution. > > Wouldn't it be more objective to first approach the authors of the existing > PHP repositories and suggest the necessary improvements? I have been > getting many improvement suggestions and as time as allowed I have been > implementing many of the good ideas that have been passed to me. I think what Rasmus means is that the fact that there are a gazillion repositories out there makes it chaotic, as well as the fact that a lot of them are not well organized (I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about yours in particular) and many only give you the code in "display source" format, which means you have to cut and paste from your browser. That is not how I want to install software on my systems. Now compare that to what CPAN offers: * a nice set of tools for configuring builds, installing, uninstalling etc. * an organized package name space * rules for coders to give better consistency and robustness * dependencies between packages * an index of package names and what they provide * download mirrors In the light of this comparison, I definitely think the description "chaotic" fits the current state PHP viewed as a whole when it comes to code repositories. - Stig