Re: GoPHP5

On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 12:44:00AM -0700, boots wrote:

> Smarty has consistently been a lowest common denominator type of library --
> without a compelling rewrite that takes specific advantage of new PHP features,
> I see no reason to abandon that at this time. What other PHP library still runs
> as well on 4.0.6 as it does on 5.2.1 and every version between? Should Smarty
> 2.x really demand 5.2+ when it can still easily support legacy users?
> 
> I'd be happy to hear more on this issue from any interested parties.
> ....

The big problem is the 'long term support' offered by distros.
Eg RedHat Enterprise 4 came out with PHP4 and so will continue to offer/support
PHP4 for another 5 years or so.

If/when PHP4 becomes a museum piece (proposed 8/8/8) the RedHat support team will
ensure that security fixes are back ported into the RedHat supported PHP.
This is a good thing; it is exactly what people who pay for want - they want an
unchanging platform so that their applications just continue to work.

Since smarty is not part of the RedHat offering people who run RHE4 will be left
with an unsupported component.

The only way that we can do 2 different things is to fork smarty:
* smarty museum: PHP4, only receives security fixes
* smarty current: move to PHP 5.2

I suspect that in 2 years time we will have the same discussion about moving
to PHP 6. At that time we will fork again to have 2 museum branches.

How long do we support stuff in the museum ? Probably 3-5 years.

It is important to realise that the museum gets security fixes only. If you
want a new feature you must upgrade. This is to keep the work load down.

> PS. As an aside, it is my humble opinion that a rewrite of Smarty should target
> PHP 5.2 as a minimum. I propose that it may even be worthwhile to wait for such
> a change until PHP6 arrives so as to finally be able to uniformly support
> unicode at the same time as upgrading the architecture.

+1 to wait for PHP6

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
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