Re: [PHP-DEV] file structure From: Stig Bakken (ssb <email protected>)
Date: 03/31/99

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Zeev Suraski wrote:

> It's simple. As I see it, there'll be no php4->php3 migration. That is
> completely impractical; We've changed all of the core files, as well quite
> a few modules, including source code, header files and directory structure.
> Right now, we have a php4 tree, which is php 3.0.6 based, and a ZendCore
> tree that plugs in nicely to it. That php4 tree would be the base of the
> php4 CVS; we'd have to migrate post-3.0.6 patches to it.
> The point is very simple - don't invest time in restructuring the php3 tree
> since you're going to dump it within a few days. Using it as a base for
> php4 is simply an impractical waste of time.
>
> About changing the API and directory structure at the same time, I'm not
> sure if that was *the* problem of php 3.1 and the key to its lingering, I
> happen to think that it didn't play a major role there. As long as we keep
> the tree at a compilable state at all times, we can apply different kinds
> of patches (structure and API) without significant problems. Another
> difference from 3.1 is that I expect that php3 development would pretty
> much slow to a halt once the php4 tree is available. It has definitely
> been my recommendation all along, and still is.

But not everyone are in a position to follow that recommendation. Much of
the development done on php3 is based on someone needing a feature in a
project, and I don't think we will see these people starting to use php4
in its first alpha version. They will use what is stable, which is
currently php3, which in turn leads to lots of extra work getting the same
changes into php4. This is _exactly_ what I want to avoid.

We are not in a position to decide on all of this as long as the php3 tree
is open to commits. When contributors have time pressure, they must
usually choose to go their own way. We should try making it easy for them
to follow the route we want them to, and this is _not_ asking them to
manually patch another source tree with a different structure and
configuration. Or else we risk that the php4 extensions lag in
functionality and stability, or that people don't bother submitting their
changes.

 - Stig 

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