Mark, no-one is picking on you.
php4/ext/ is way too full of modules which are more or less useless to the day - to - day user. Often, we have specialized stuff like pcntl and ncurses, only used for CLI stuff, or stuff like ovrimos,muscat,mngosearch,mhash,mcal,recode etc, which more or less very specialized extensions for more or less specific projects. PECL was designed for this. The idea being, that it is a repository for PHP C Extensions and Code which are not mainstream. More and more recently we have had interest from people who are looking to make PHP work as an embedded platform. This is marvellous stuff, PHP is more than capable here. But if we package 4 billion extensions with every release, and continue to maintain a ridiculously engorged tree, then PHP ceases to be useful. This is why Stig, et al, started PEAR, and hopefully with the official release we'll start to see a slimer, more dedicated php, with cleaner API's where needed, and more plug and play compatible than bill g could ever have dreamed of. :) Why is PECL so great? here are some ideas: - you get to release on your schedule. So no waiting for the next PHP release (which I am sure will cease to be as frequent as is now -- we already get enough complaints from sysadmins about upgrading). - you get to be as strict as you like about what code gets checked in. - you get all the tools that PEAR offers, -- which i honestly believe will become more useful for PHP module/ext developers than sourceforge. Be your own boss! enjoy the benefits of PECL! :) -- james -- PHP Development Mailing List <http://www.php.net/> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
