Terence Kearns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote... :
> OK, after having read the threads, I know I'm gonna get blasted/flamed, > but I have to say this cos I've spent a lot of time trying to develop > "elegent" XML based solutions in PHP and this issue kills it for me > every time. So let me appologise in advance, BUT... You just restarted the war... > Speaking on v5, not only should support short tags be off by default, it > should be completely abandoned Any ideas of how many existing applications will stop working? > We can't make up for the past in this version because it will break a > lot of exisitng PHP scripts, but with version 5, ***most scripts will > have to be ported or patched anyway*** to run on v5. This being the > case, it won't be difficult for the developers to replace /<\? */ with > "<?php " Actually, it will. PHP5 will not be the change as big as the jump from v3 to v4. So, most of the things will still work well on v5. If somewhere not then it will be a few issues. Now, if we abandon short tags, we gonna make 80% of the scripts out there USELESS. Do you know how much does it cost? Make a count that there are some million of sites. If, to debug a whole site it takes a day for one programmer that gets, say few - $20 per hour, altogether will mean: 20*8*1,000,000 = $160,000,000. Yup, you read it right - One Hundred Sixty Million Dollars. And we haven't counted yet the down times loss for every business! Now, let's not be so paranoid, there are no 1.000.000 sites and not each of them takes a day and not each programmer gets that much (if gets paid at all), though, but still, the amount lost in turning off short tags will be several dozens of millions of dollars all over the world. Does all that XML elegance cost that? or we better, maybe, implement a work-around for the problem that becomes available on some next update of PHP? Actually, even worth have happened with turing register_grobals to off by default. But, at least there were reasons: security and marketing. These are big money too. > I can fully understand all the issues to do with the current v4 and > prior - particularly ISP issues - but since v5 is a whole new kettle of > fish, then there is no excuse - particularly since badly written (short > tag) scripts can be *easily* fixed with a recursive search/replace > operation. Not "fixed", but "debugged". Do you think that everyone is as smart as you are and uses an editor with the replace function in multiple files? > v5 should be looking after future trends - this means full XML support! It does indeed! > v5 should not be backwards looking! Compatibility is also an issue. > having to do things like > <?php > my_custom_insert_XMLdeclaration(); // *+ see fottnote > my_custom_insert_XML_PI($name,$content); > ?> > is bullshit!!! Bullshit is you. > Notice that I also have to make sure that there is no whitespace between > the beginning of the file and this opening PHP block because the XML > spec requires the declaration to be on the first line with no preceeding > space!!!!!!! Of course, otherwise you need to set the WHOLE BUNCH of header calls yourself. I'll see how fun you'll have :) PH dopes it FOR YOU automatically. > My point is, that this is not about "convenience" for XML developers, > ***it's about supporting standards*** - in this case XML - since that's > where the future is. We set the standards here. No one says that '<?' is an XML's standard, '<?xml' is. '<?' is nothing more than just a delimiter chosen top be something that one will hardly type in for another need. Only because XML has it, doesn't mean we need to break all sites on the globe. Some don't even plan to use XML anyway, guess how pissed they will be :) > come on, lets move with the times here. > > I mean no disrespect to anyone (especially Andi and Zeev who seem to > disagree), You already did by just mentioning so. > but this is my feeling on the matter and I feel strongly > compelled to express it. My feeling on your feeling - you are incompetent in this matter. -- Maxim Maletsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.PHPBeginner.com // where PHP Begins -- PHP Development Mailing List <http://www.php.net/> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
