Don't take this the wrong way, I'm merely trying to provoke your thoughts a bit with this e-mail! :-)
Has it occurred to anyone, to abandon the official PHP codebase and adopt Phalanger instead? Some convincing (to me) points: - Phalanger runs on Mono, meaning similar platform-reach as PHP. (but eliminating most platform-specific implementations.) - It's fast. (probably fast enough to mostly eliminate the need for native extensions in general.) - The community would be able to write modules/extensions in PHP or other CLR languages. - It's secure. (not that C/FFI PHP extensions tend not to be trustworthy, but they do tend to come from a relatively small group of authors.) - Access to more languages means a much bigger community who can contribute extensions and core patches. - Access to existing CLR codebases means more third-party libraries can be readily integrated without writing and maintainting C/FFI wrappers. - The codebase is new, clean and modern (it's not dragging around a lot of legacy baggage.) - Fully take advantage of new 64-bit hardware (vector computations and larger address space) in all aspects. (core, extensions, PHP scripts). I'm not going to try to sell you on the fact that the integration with the Windows world is tighter in Phalanger than in PHP - but it is a point that carries considerable weight to many businesses. People I know have had a tendency to view Phalanger as "PHP for Windows" - it's really not. It's PHP for CLR - and CLR is not (only) Windows. And it is readily available on most modern operating systems with good support for various hardware platforms. Now, before you start flaming me - I'd love to hear precisely why you're eager to hang on to the C codebase. What are the benefits of the C codebase over Phalanger? I understand the licensing may be an issue. It may be the argument that outweighs everything else, but I'm curious to hear what else would keep you from moving to Phalanger? Thanks! - Rasmus Schultz
