[Kristian Koehntopp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 02:24:27AM +0300, Zeev Suraski wrote:
> > >I've rambled a bit, but my feeling is that the Linux Today Article
> > >is premature. PHP can (and likely will) support the features
> > >mentioned in the article, but the real question is, are these
> > >really the features that are going to be used?
>
> > Very nice non-PC statement! :)
>
> A programming language is not only a tool and a framework, it also is
> a set of people sharing a common vision and working together - a
> community. What Microsoft provided with .net is not so much a product
> - yet. It is a vision, though, and a plan where they want to go in the
> next few years.
>
> So to compete here, PHP need not only be superior in technical
> checklist items, it also has to provide a kind of development roadmap,
> a plan where it wants to be in 3 and in 5 years, and what services it
> will provide to developers then. That is the PHP vision that the
> language and the system needs to stand the marketing onslaught by
> Microsoft.
>
> Note how other communities, notably Perl, provided such a vision in
> the past (e.g. the mythical Perl compiler), and continue to provide
> such visions now (e.g. Perl 6 and flexible scanners to turn Perl into
> the one language to parse all syntaxes). Larry provides even more -
> with his speeches and interviews he even provides a kind of philosophy
> behind Perl, a greater concept to explain not only how, but also why
> things have been done the way they have been done.
>
> As you can see in the case of Perl, the vision need not be final,
> useful or even true, it just needs to be cool, and believable. It is
> being used as a tool to bind the community tigther together, to
> provide hope and a sense of direction.
>
>
> To come back to PHP: What is the place of PHP in 3 and in 5 years,
> what are the next big projects tackled in the development of PHP, and
> what is the larger idea behind PHP - what does the language _want_ to
> become, and what audience will it cater. If you can answer these
> questions for your developing audience, these answers will have a
> large influence on the qualification and quantity of audience you
> have.
Very nicely put, Kristian. A lot of people in the PHP community have
visions, but we have not yet managed to put something together that
people can look forward to.
IMHO people like Zeev, Andi and Rasmus are the natural "channels" for
such visions, but we're not quite there yet. But for a vision to form
we need to find a common ground for a few things. The LinuxToday
article kept rambling about PHP not being a platform, which is true,
it is but one of the components in such a platform. But it doesn't
mean we can go on not having this platform in mind. Thinking services
_is_ important today, it's what most big "online companies" have to
do, Microsoft knows this, and they help creating the wave they've
started riding now.
There's quite a few "service platforms" for PHP out there today, but
their needs from the language should be made more visible, so we can
foster the development (and maybe even consolidation) of systems such
as PEAR, binarycloud and so on. I'm not rambling on the engine2
mailing list about namespaces, advices and whatnot because my mind is
going, it's because I see these features as powerful enablers for PHP
going in this direction.
- Stoig
--
Stig Sæther Bakken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Fast Search & Transfer ASA, Trondheim, Norway
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