ID: 39372 Updated by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reported By: cm at cmunt dot demon dot co dot uk -Status: Open +Status: Suspended Bug Type: *Compile Issues Operating System: All PHP Version: 5.2.0 New Comment:
We take these breaks extremely seriously and go out of our way to not break BC. We never break BC in a sub-release (the z part of x.y.z) and if you look at the frequency of the other releases you will find that there is actually quite a while between BC breaks. Of course, if you download intermediate versions from CVS during development, you will be hit more often. But the actual recent bumps have been: For the 4.x branch: 4.3.0 Dec.27, 2002 4.4.0 Jul 11, 2005 In the 4.3 to 4.4 case, the change was minor, but necessary. Most extensions weren't actually affected, but it was still a change, and we didn't want to hide it. For the 5.x branch: 5.0.0 Jul 13, 2004 5.1.0 Nov 24, 2005 5.2.0 Nov 2, 2006 Each of these have also been quite necessary in order to improve a number of areas in the API. It's nice to say this can be solved by API abstraction, but that means getting the API perfect up front. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2006-11-04 09:49:59] cm at cmunt dot demon dot co dot uk Description: ------------ You will probably not regard this issue as bug and it is something that you are no doubt already aware of but it is a problem that, in our experience, causes no end of confusion and frustration among many users of PHP. The issue is this: pretty much every new release of PHP (including a significant number of minor upgrades) requires that all third party extension modules be rebuilt from source. There doesnt appear to be any technical reason why this should be the case after all, Ive yet to see a situation where module code has to be changed on upgrade. This is a huge nuisance particularly since many PHP systems these days are either pre-installed in binary form or tend to be distributed as pre-built kits (e.g. Windows). The requirement to rebuild could be removed by abstracting the data structures used in the PHP API to a higher level in much the same was as Microsoft has done with ISAPI extensions to IIS. Incidentally, I seem to remember the PHP community being up in arms in the early days of Apache v2 when every minor upgrade (2.0.x) required third party Apache modules to be rebuilt i.e. the PHP DSO. In the end the Apache Group capitulated and properly abstracted the API such that a rebuild would only be necessary between _major_ upgrades. This brings me to another problem with PHP: there seems to be no way of telling in advance whether or not third party modules will need rebuilding. Sometimes a minor upgrade will require a module rebuild; sometimes not. A little more effort and/or rationalization in this area would be much appreciated ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=39372&edit=1
