Hi Derick and all, I think we have had some reasonable additions to the language in PHP 5.3 + will have a couple of good ones in PHP 5.4. That said, I do agree we should have a strong bias against language feature creep unless there is a really strong compelling reason. I do think that an increase of focus on enriching the eco-system around the core language esp. PHP extensions will be a lot more valuable. This is especially so if we can target many of the up and coming technologies and get such extensions production ready to bundle in Core PHP (hence my previous email re: adding some modern extensions).
We've benefited in the past from a lot of enhancements and innovation around extensions incl. SimpleXML, variety of database, json, datetime, etc... Having another wave of really strong core extensions would be very beneficial and consistent with our past bias to deliver everything Web developers need out-of-the-box. Hence my suggestion to bundle MongoDB extension and possibly work on additional extensions. Some of my suggestions probably rightfully didn't get much interest such as Thrift. Maybe we should consider making a list of extensions we think could be beneficial and the new mentorship program can actually help deliver some of them? Stas, on a different note, weren't we going to roll a 5.4 alpha? Andi >-----Original Message----- >From: Derick Rethans [mailto:der...@php.net] >Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2011 4:05 AM >To: PHP Developers Mailing List >Subject: [PHP-DEV] Give the Language a Rest motion (fwd) > >Hi, > >Short-array syntax, Native JSON, "Currying". I can almost only say one thing: >WHY?! > >And because of that, I'd like to forward a mail by Zeev from a few years ago. I >think it applies now even more than then: > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:57:32 +0200 >From: Zeev Suraski <z...@zend.com> >To: internals@lists.php.net >Subject: [PHP-DEV] Give the Language a Rest motion > >I'd like to raise a motion to 'Give the Language a Rest'. > >Almost a decade since we started with the 2nd iteration on the syntax (PHP 3), >and 2 more major versions since then, and we're still heatedly debating on >adding new syntactical, core level features. > >Is it really necessary? I'd say in almost all cases the answer's no, and a >bunch of >cases where a new feature could be useful does not constitute a good enough >reason to add a syntax level feature. We might have to account for new >technologies, or maybe new ways of thinking that might arise, but needless to >say, most of the stuff we've been dealing with in recent times doesn't exactly >fall in the category of cutting edge technology. > >My motion is to make it much, much more difficult to add new syntax-level >features into PHP. Consider only features which have significant traction to a >large chunk of our userbase, and not something that could be useful in some >extremely specialized edge cases, usually of PHP being used for non web stuff. > >How do we do it? Unfortunately, I can't come up with a real mechanism to >'enforce' a due process and reasoning for new features. > >Instead, please take at least an hour to bounce this idea in the back of your >mind, preferably more. Make sure you think about the full context, the huge >audience out there, the consequences of making the learning curve steeper with >every new feature, and the scope of the goodness that those new features bring. >Consider how far we all come and how successful the PHP language is today, in >implementing all sorts of applications most of us would have never even thought >of when we created the language. > >Once you're done thinking, decide for yourself. Does it make sense to be >discussing new language level features every other week? Or should we, >perhaps, invest more in other fronts, which would be beneficial for a far >bigger >audience. The levels above - extensions to keep with the latest technologies, >foundation classes, etc. Pretty much, the same direction other mature >languages went to. > >To be clear, and to give this motion higher chances of success, I'm not talking >about jump. PHP can live with jump, almost as well as it could live without it >:) I'm talking about the general sentiment. > >Zeev > >-- >http://derickrethans.nl | http://xdebug.org Like Xdebug? Consider a donation: >http://xdebug.org/donate.php >twitter: @derickr and @xdebug > >-- >PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: >http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
