Re: [PHP-LANG] "Mission Statement"

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Zeev Suraski wrote:

> I'd say that it exists to develop the language specification for PHP
> period.  I don't see how portability or vendor independence have anything
> to do with it...

    Here is a short explanation for both terms, in the context of
    last week's netmask thread (on zend-cvs).

    Portability:

        The ``hack'' relies on the host platform's long being
        32-bit which makes it non-portable. This particular
        feature and similar ones should not be part of the
        specification.

    Vendor-independence:

        I'm certain there are other tricks which are simple
        side-effects of the current implementation.

    While those terms might appear to be obvious, I'm certain
    that it helps to focus the work's group and to give observers
    a better understanding of our target.

    - Sascha