Re: Re: Status of a stable ISAPI??

Zeev, Andi and myself went to Microsoft for a few days, and Zeev and Andi did work out some issues as a result of that. But stability of PHP goes much further than the ISAPI interface. Thread safety is a key issue, and not many of the developers working on PHP develop under an environment that requires thread safety. Right now, the place it's most important is on Windows, perhaps with Apache 2.0 that will change. Without many developers working on Windows, thread safety issues will not get as tested or worked on as much as it needs to be. That said, I think the thread safety in the core should be very good, but when you get to the various extension modules that is less clear and more problematic. A good result of that visit is that we now have some contacts at Microsoft for those times that we run into issues where we need their input. Shane ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Meagher" <paul@datavore.com> To: "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@php.net> Cc: <php-windows@lists.php.net> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 12:06 PM Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] Re: Status of a stable ISAPI?? > Interesting observations, Rasmus. > > I thought I heard that some developers at Zend were invited to Redmond to > be enlightened about ISAPI? Furthermore, didn't they mention that they > were expecting a big improvement in the stability of the ISAPI module as a > result of this meeting? I have no recollection of where I read this so > take what I say with a grain of salt until you hear otherwise. > > At any rate, it would seem a better strategy to seek such invitations from > Microsoft than to throw alot of effort at reverse engineering the black > box? > > Regards, > Paul Meagher > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@php.net> > To: "Eric R. Gavin" <jedi@tstonramp.com> > Cc: <php-windows@lists.php.net> > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 2:31 PM > Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] Re: Status of a stable ISAPI?? > > > > Windows development is tough because it includes a lot of black box > > programming. You send stuff into the various M$ APIs and it spews stuff > > back at you and from that you try to guess what is happening in the black > > box. On UNIX systems you can trace all the way down to the kernel level > > and definitively figure out exactly what is happening. This removes all > > the guesswork and the resulting code is more stable. > > > > The second issue is that we have about a 50:1 ratio of UNIX developers to > > Windows developers who volunteer their time to PHP development. I think > > the problem is simply that historically UNIX developers have always > worked > > on open code and they take pride in contributing to projects like PHP. > > The average Windows developer has a different mindset which for some > > reason rarely results in significant code contributions to projects like > > PHP. > > > > The third issue is that in the Windows world there is a very clear and > > distinct separation between the software vendor and the software user. > > The vendor writes the code, the user buys it and bickers at the vendor > > when it doesn't work. This is contrary to the way open source software > > development works. As a user of an open source tool like PHP you are > part > > of the process. It doesn't matter whether you can write code, you can > > contribute by helping with the documentation, writing well-prepared and > > concise bug reports, testing release candidates as they appear or helping > > new users on the various mailing lists. Many people who are used to the > > standard vendor/user model of proprietary software aren't used to this > and > > they do occasionally piss off the developers of open source projects like > > PHP by demanding things be fixed or they will take their business > > elsewhere... Go figure. > > > > But, at the technical level, this has nothing to do with being pissed off > > at anybody, nor is it a lack of financial resources. Money rarely > > translates to code. It is purely a lack of people who understand all the > > intricate pitfalls of ISAPI and the other related M$ internals that is > > necessary to make the PHP-ISAPI version robust. We also lack clear and > > reproducable PHP-ISAPI bug reports. Most of the ones we get just say > that > > "sometimes it breaks". That doesn't exactly give us much to go on. Try > > to do a bit of legwork and narrow down exactly under which conditions it > > breaks. If it is intermittent, try to figure out if you can get it to > > happen more frequently in certain circumstances, or if you can eliminate > > the problem by removing something. ie. shoulder some of the initial > > trial-and-error discovery phase that any problem requires before it can > be > > solved. > > > > So, what can you do if you have a strong desire to see better Windows > > support in PHP? Since what we really need are more strong Windows > > developers, try to find us some of those. Perhaps you have some on your > > staff. Encourage them to get involved with PHP. If you have plenty of > > cash lying around, hire such a Windows developer and assign him the task > > of helping out. Throwing money at existing PHP developers to get them to > > change their priorities could also help, but that means they are not > > working on something else that they previously deemed to be of higher > > priority for whatever reason. I would rather see more developer > resources > > than a focus shift of the existing ones. > > > > -Rasmus > > > > On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Eric R. Gavin wrote: > > > > > > Does the PHP staff lack resources to develop the Win32 environment > > > > sufficiently? (I would help if I knew how) > > > > Is there a database of current issues, owner of issue and due date? > > > (normal > > > > project management stuff) > > > > > > Heh... couldn't resist a sarcastic post ^_^ > > > > > > I think that all the PHP coders out there are just pissed off that MS > won a > > > good part of their court case. *snicker* > > > > > > DOWN WITH THE EVIL BEHEMOTH!!! *lol* > > > > > > Anyway, to hopefully add SOME value to this thread. I've basically > been > > > "reading between the lines" on this issue and it seems that there just > isn't > > > any real concern to fix this for Windows NT. It sounds like it works > pretty > > > well with Windows 2000 and I wouldn't be surprised if "the PHP powers > that > > > be" are basically trying to hold their breath and hope everybody moves > to > > > W2K. > > > > > > Ironically, that kind of behavior (fixing a problem by upgrading to the > > > latest and greatest) is the same kind of behavior that slashdot.com > will > > > ENDLESSLY berate Bill Gates for. > > > > > > Eric R. Gavin > > > [this has been an extremely sarcastic post] > > > > > > -- > > PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-windows-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > > For additional commands, e-mail: php-windows-help@lists.php.net > > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net > > > > > > > -- > PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-windows-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-windows-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net >