[phplib] binarycloud, PEAR, etc From: Alex Black (enigma <email protected>)
Date: 01/18/01

hi all,

For those of you who do not know me: my name is Alex Black, I'm the designer
(and I suppose corporate sponsor) of binarycloud.

binarycloud was built to directly support my company's build efforts: large
scale websites & web applications with PHP.

the code is quite mature (i.e. I have customers running on it), we're
actually in the process of creating some things that will _seriously_
enhance people's ability to create robust apps quickly - in addition to the
vast array of tools we already provide.

I've had some conversations with Stig re: PEAR, here's my feeling about it:

    -the idea is fantastically good. (CPAN for php)
    -they _are_ unnecessarily recreating some components that binarycloud
has in mature form.

so, lots of good and a little tiny bit of bad.

------

some other information:
    -binarycloud uses matabase as its DB abstraction layer, though the world
would not end if we had to change. note that I love metabase, mostly because
it actually works. (i.e. I would have to be convinced of another abstraction
layer's production readiness, and have a good argument re: features)
    -we have a little bit of PHPLIB (the shopping cart) in our libs
directory.
    -we do not use the session handling features of PHPLIB, because
binarycloud was not designed for any compatibility with PHP3.
    -we do not use the template or database abstraction capabilities of
PHPLIB: the reason for the former, is I do not like parsed templates. the
reason for the latter, is in my (admittedly limited) tests of all the
abstraction layers I could find as of 6 months ago, metabase was the most
mature, had the widest db engine support, and had some other cool features
like XML schema definitions.

--------

ok, now the meat:

binarycloud was designed from the beginning to be a cohesive _system_ that
would support rapid, high quality builds of a large codebase. PHPLIB is a
collection of libraries, and examples for including into your site. PEAR
(will be) a collection of libraries for doing all kinds of things.

_the_only_ overlap between all of these projects, so long as the PEAR
standard do not go so far as to include standards for include structure
(which I think would be a mistake) - is the core components:

    database abstraction
    error handling
    authentication
    permissions

Stig suggested that binarycloud be an external package of PEAR, or a
"distribution" (like redhat is for linux) - but the problem with that idea
is that - using the same metaphor: redhat did not write 90% of its own code
:)

In a perfect world, I would like to see:
    -metabase be improved as part of binarycloud, especially to adhere to
the code standards
    -standardization of the PHPLib components, so they can be included in
the binarycloud libs directory
    -PEAR grow to include a large collection of libraries that are
_directly_ pluggable with binarycloud to support application builders using
binarycloud as a platform.

in short, there is _absolutely_no_reason_ for there to be any "overlap"
between any of these projects, we should all use whatever code we find is
the most mature, incorporate that into the development process, and
continually improve it.

so, the question to you all:

    -do you see any conflicts?
    -would you like to see PHPLib's components integrated into binarycloud
to the extent that they can be?
    -what is your opinion of the current PEAR codebase (which last I saw in
the PHP4.0.4 was tiny)
    -what is your opinion on the license conflicts posed by the fact that
PEAR will be using the PHP-style license, _not_ GPL?

By the way, this is also an open invitation to all who are interested to
join binarycloud-dev (go to binarycloud.com)

I would like to try and make this work for all involved.

best,

_alex 

--
Alex Black, Head Monkey
enigma <email protected>

The Turing Studio, Inc.
http://www.turingstudio.com

vox+510.666.0074
fax+510.666.0093

Saul Zaentz Film Center
2600 Tenth St Suite 433
Berkeley, CA 94710-2522

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