Re: [PHP4BETA] Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP 4.0.0Release packaged

Hello Ron,

On 22-May-00 05:48:31, you wrote:

>> >different story. Here's another story: I introduced PHP in a company I
>> >work for around one year ago. Today, the company uses PHP for several
>> >different projects, and prefers it over ASP and Perl. However PHP was
>> >almost banned, as on the first project we had to access a Database via
>> >ODBC, since that was really poorly documented. "Arrogance towards Windows
>> >users" was one of the nicer terms I encountered from colleagues scanning
>> >the documentation. The
>> Thanks for your testemony.  From the response I was getting here, it
>> sounded like I was bringing up irrelevant problems with PHP acceptance that
>> didn't matter to address.

>No, but you aren't doing anything to _fix_ the problem. You can go whine

Wrong!  I spent an afternoon trying to isolate a minimal chunk of PHP code
that would be enough to replicate the bug.  I posted a meaningful bug
report with as much information as I could find.

I even tried to look at the bug myself, but I could not find it where I was
looking because it was not in PostgreSQL code but rather in putenv() code.
Anyway, a meaningful bug report is half of the way to a bug fix and someone
more knowledge of the code just fixed it.


>on the Lasso lists, or the ASP lists, about "how such and such doesn't work"
>and how "you can't sell it", but if you take a look at what people will
>actually
>_buy_ (drumbeat, anyone?), you discover that most companies don't give a hoot
>about the technology, or the features, or the code maturity. They want to use
>something that will do what they want. Of all of their options, all of the
>software has crappy documentation, bugs galore (NT2K has over 1,000 known
>bugs, and yet people still buy it). So the question is finding the best fit
>of software, not the one that always works exactly the way you want it to...
>Because no such software exists, and never has existed.

You are not getting what the real problem is.  PHP is not being able to
penetrate in many Web development companies that use inferior commercial
products because when advocates (employees) try to convince managers
(bosses) they pick on every little detail that they may find to trade
whatever they use for PHP.  The smallest noticeable failure or lack of
documentation is suficient to rule out PHP, often for good.


>So figure out how to help fix it. A corny american saying: "If you're not
>part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

I would say in my case that "when you are not allowed by Rasmus to be part of
the solution that's also part of the problem." You may want to ask him why my
request for a CVS account was never accepted till today.

Actually, it is unfair to blame the situation on anyone else in the core
developers, except for Rasmus.  I regret the fact that he usually takes
charge on everything I come here to say, being either constructive
criticisms or improvement suggestions. The man just doesn't like people that
make public criticisms.  He just wants to remain untouchably arrogant, but
that's nothing new. That's a bug that only him can fix.

I don't know if you were here then, but you may find yet another silly
episode in the mailing list archives, a long time ago I was realizing that
many bugs lead to crashes due to memory corruption.  Very typical in C
programming.

With only good intentions, I suggested that should be added some code to
the memory allocation management code in PHP to keep track of allocated
pointers to avoid duplicated attempts to free memory blocks or memory
pointed by invalid pointers, memory walls to detect traces of trashing
beyhond the allocated space and so on.

Rasmus immediatly jumped in to detract my suggestion with all the
unjustified arguments that he could remember.  He was so commited to
detract my suggestion that he even suggested it would better the use of
Purify, which is a commercial tool that is not so inexpensive.  Can you
imagine, a OpenSource die-hard recommending the use of commercial source
instead of developer contributed code that would be more effective?
Something is really wrong in his head.  He fights my suggestions to
insanity.

But that was not all. When I offered to develop the necessary
code, he claimed that they should not be doing fundamental changes to
the memory allocation code. But guess what, coincidentally Zeev had
already developed code to do what I suggested in Zend and backported
that to PHP 3.0.7 .

And guess what? The memory trashing detection support helped tracking
many bugs that usually lead to misterious crashes that often lead to
those useless "Document contains no data" messages that browsers showed.
Rest assured that this code has a big stake of responsability in the
stability of PHP code.

All those excuses that Rasmus forced to detract my suggestion just made a
fool of himself.  His luck is that the matter was too technical to be fully
understood by the PHP developers mailing list audience, otherwise his
embarrassment huge.  But don't take my description of the facts as I say,
read it all here.

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&w=2&r=1&s=Memory+trashing&q=b

Anyway, this is one of many silly episodes that I had to put up with Rasmus
forcing his opposition to every little suggestion that I brought to improve
PHP.  I recall of things from the HTTP PUT patch to a proper database
abstraction package that PHP still suffers of lacking.

Other than that are the contributions that I never bother to write because
I am discouraged from spending time developing because Rasmus does not want
me to have a CVS account in PHP repository.  From the top of my mind I can
tell you about:

- SSL support to make connections with secure servers
- Bind/listen support to make TCP/IP to write backend servers in PHP.
- An extension to parse HTML using W3C libwww library.

I could still write these but since they wouldn't be accepted due to the
usual boycott of Rasmus, I don't feel like having to patching every new
release of PHP just to use my code.  Now that you seem to may write your
own independent PHP extensions, that's not quite a problem, but I no longer
have that much free time as I used to have when I thought of developing
that.

One last note on this comment, I regret that I have to wash the dirty
laundry here, but since I was getting so many hostile answers from any you
guys that are not aware of the whole facts, I felt like I had to justify
myself.

And you know what, despite the intensity of the discussions for all these
years, I still don't have nothing personal against Rasmus.  Personally, I
don't keep ill feelings with anybody regardless how much harm they may have
tried to cause me.  I try to forgive and forget but discussions like this
keep me going back to the past.  It may be annoying but circunstances make
me feel its necessary because my credibility is at stake.


>> >problem was solved quite quickly after posting to the mailing list, but
>> >the scepticism remained. Another project refused to continue working after
>> >upgrading from 3.0.x to 3.0.y (I think that was around 3.0.12). The
>> >reason: the infamous mail()-bug; if you omit the last, optional parameter
>> >for mail(), mail() will not work on Win32 any longer. Thank god I very
>> >quickly found the problem (and the solution) in the PHP online bug system,
>> >but it is still not fixed in 3.0.16, and not documented.
>> Yes, I have been through that several times.

>Welcome to software development? Perhaps you should find another line of work
>if you want it to always be right the first few times. Of the closed source
>products out there, how many do not have bug-fix versions, and only release
>major feature upgrades? NONE. Why should open source be different? Is your
>own code perfect for six months? Is it ever perfect? Mine isn't.

You didn't get what I meant.  PHP had a bug that he reported but went
unnoticed until yesterday because he brought it up.  That makes PHP users
like us believe that it is worthy to claim attention as much times as
necessary to the bugs that affect us more. If there was a more systematic
approch to bug fixing, we wouldn't have to do that.

Instead, as I said several times already, bugs are fixed only if developers
like the face of the report or sympathizes with the reporter.  People keep
adding features continuosly even after Release Candidate versions a
released, instead of making that the start of the code freeze period.  You
know, I am repeating myself because it seems some didn't got it right
before.


>> You can't complain because you are
>> relying on good will, but if you bother to remind that there is a
>> outstanding bug there, you are accused of demanding fixes.

>Well, what's wrong with your website? I _still_ havn't gotten a good download
>of metabase because the damn thing won't resend my password, (which I didn't
>get to choose, which screwed up my login). I can't read the metabase

Passwords are sent automatically by e-mail. Has it crossed your mind that
your server may be bouncing messages to you sent by my site? Unfortunately
that happens a lot with some users. I can't do much there because if users
bounce messages I can't contact them over e-mail to see what's wrong.

Since I can't get through to you over, I hope the list excuse me for using
this message to inform that there is a recent account with your name and
address that says that your password is the one that was sent in the
e-mail.

There is another older account with a name similar to yours that says that
the password was reset by the system on 2000-05-19.  Either way, if you
didn't get a password, it's certainly an e-mail problem that transcends the
best of my efforts.


>documentation because your website is so screwed up that the documentation
>can't be found without your broken user/pass being fixed. I can't get

That's not broken, that's meant to be for justified reasons.


>reliable information, I can't get a decent download, I send you the
>information to get it fixed, and YOU IGNORED IT. Why can't you act like the

I don't recall having received any message in those terms.  When have you
sent it?


>developer you want PHP to be? Why can't you provide reliable support? Why
>don't you fix these problems? I was considering your software, but your
>treatment was so unprofessional that I cannot, in good faith, even consider
>using it. I can't get to the software to even _try_ it, and you have ignored
>my pleas. How can anybody be expected to use it if it is so unreliable to get
>support?

>So, Manuel, how does it feel? I tried to be patient with you, because I
>thought you'd be different, after copping the attitude about support on the
>lists I see you on? You have the exact same problems you accuse them of
>having.

I never denied support.  You are jumping to conclusions without
investigating exactly what may be failing.


>> > However I agree with them on
>> >some point. The reaction to criticism may be justified (hey, if I was one
>> >of the core people behind PHP, I'd kill everybody who'd say just one word
>> >against it), but from a marketing point of view, it's sub-optimal. I think
>> If you only half of the people that contests my message would reckon that,
>> I would be happier and wouldn't feel that I have been talking to the walls.

>You know what? It is the same problem in most software development. It is
>hard to keep everyone happy, and it is often an issue of trying to find
>the company who is the least offensive, or the least arrogant, or has
>the most people placating the users. No mailing list I have ever been on
>is without its "doubting thomas" (a christian metaphor for the person
>who always supects, always complains, always fears the worst). I think
>the dissent is good, but with it comes personal animosity, just because
>it feel bad to have your work unappreciated. Manuel probably did not
>like the way I criticized him above, even though I do respect his opinions
>and work.

It's not a matter of liking. Once you do something that is susceptible of
public scrutiny, you can expect all sorts of criticism. I find criticism
to be valuable feedback, even when it is destructive. I try to understand
what people mean beyhond the criticism itself.

I try to understand the motives.  Some times destructive criticism may mean
that there was a misunderstanding that affects me.  If I don't get that
sort of feedback I may be loosing important opportunities without knowning.
Other times nice feedback may just mean that people just to compliment to
gain my sympathy and then ask something else beyond that.

Reflecting about any kind of feed back you get is very important.  Too bad
there is a lot of people here that don't bother to reflect much and are not
able to hold their pants on and just shoot.

I wish some people get wiser and ask themselves, "Could Manuel actually be
saying something that is important to listen, reflect and maybe to follow?"
But no, the level of immaturity is unfortunately very high.  Some people
just enjoy a good flame war to beat up the poor fellow that had the nerve
to criticise PHP development.

And you know what, I am getting so many support mail in private that you
can't even imagine.  I even try ask those people to show what they feel in
public, but I understand that they just don't feel like being beat up as
well like I am having to put up.

Still, I get encouragements from people that feel I am absolutely right.
It's like a hidden crowd cheering for David, while Golias has the support
of a noisy crowd that thinks that fellows like Rasmus are gods and thus
untouchable. Simply crazy!



>> Anyway, I sense some progress. You know what, this is happening to me
>> again, but while I present my justified criticisms and improvement
>> suggestions, I get a lot of personal mail of people that understand the
>> importance what I am saying and offer their support.

>Well, you've had _mine_... you write a lot, and different people support
>different things. I want a unified database abstraction layer, but I think
>the idea of making PHP more like closed source is totally wrong. Closed

Never meant it that way.


>source usually has worse manuals, worse documentation, than open source. It
>takes longer to get bug fixes, because they are tied up in Quality
>Assurance for two months, not two weeks.... in your criticisms, you often
>bring out support from different people, depending on their concerns.

So, you feel I am wrong proposing measures to assure better software
quality in PHP?


>> >everybody here respects the endless, unpaid hours of work that were put
>> >into PHP and into php.net

>Go team, go!

There it is the noisy crowd cheering for Golias! :-)


>> >, but if there's no bug-free software, there's also no
>> >error-free concept, and (constructive) suggestions to amend that should be
>> >given a forum and should be discussed without bias.
>> Right.  Too bad that some people don't value constructive criticism.

>It has to be constructive. What was constuctive in what I said?
>a) Don't force registration on your website.

If only you knew that is one vital thing that lead to the site success.
Let me explain, people subscribe to be able to download.  All downloads are
accounted rigourously.  With those figures I can compute top charts that
are displayed in the site.

Developers see the charts and the names of those that uploaded it and
think, if I upload my code here, I will also figure in the top charts.  If
my code is popular I may even reach close to the top and be in the hall of
the fame for a long time.

For developers that write their code for free this is a very sweet prize
because they have egos and if they have the capacity the deserve the
recognition.

Conclusion, since I added the top charts page the number uploaded classes
boosted.  Without requiring people to register it would be possible to
compute accurate and credible charts.


>b) Answer registration problems quickly.

>I also said it in a way that may anger or upset you. It's hard to read
>criticism, so problems often become obscured by emotions.

>So, the clock is ticking. How fast will you fix _my_ problem, before I
>complain again to public lists? :-)

Maybe you have to use public lists because it seems to be the way that it
is working to the messages through to you. :-)


>> In
>> the real world people are paid to judge and criticise.  Many of those are
>> called consultants. I guess I get some hostile feedback to my criticisms
>> because I am not charging for it. Maybe I should. :-)

>You should. It pays well. You also have to learn more about why PHP is, quite
>frankly, one of the best options available. And then you get paid to *prove*
>it, and they may pay you to tell them why ASP is a broken piece of crap. It's
>a lot of fun. :-)

Believe me that I tried.  I worked for ISP that develops web sites for
clients. They use ASP because that's all that they know. They fear that they
may get lost in the change.  They know ASP/MSSQL/IIS/NT works for them.  They
don't know that for PHP.  PHP is not advertised in the real world.

Take a look at Web development magazines and you see that the difference
articles on ASP are more or less about 10 to 1 on PHP.  The low presence of
PHP in the media that many Web development companies use to get informed
make them believe that ASP is what everybody is using.

The owner of the company was obcessively telling me that 90% of the market
runs ASP.  We know that can't be because the IIS share is only 25% against
60% of Apache.  He is clueless but's that the real world.  They only know
what they see in the media.  It's pointless to laugh at their ignorance
because this lack of media recognition affects all of us big time.

I tried to do my share but it's not an individual that is going to fix the
world by himself.  I spent a lot of time developing a MSSQL driver for
Metabase even though I don't use Windows stuff at all because I am aware
that it is a vital thing for many users to make the change between the ASP
world to the PHP world.

I wrote the MSSQL driver off line and I seek and found a friend that uses
both worlds to fix me a telnet account to a W2K box that I could use to
test the driver.  The driver is working and fully certified with quality
assurance procedures that I developed in Metabase.

The Metabase ODBC driver still needs work to be used in full.  It needs
some functions only available in PHP 4 to query the ODBC driver
capabilities to take the most of the underlying database.

But guess what?  Those functions are not documented.  I contacted the
author those functions and maybe I can get along with the information that
he may provide me, but it would be much better if I the documentation was
fully available. Now, imagine those ASP zealots peaking on the lack of
documentation of PHP just to justify not making the move.

To summarize, I tried to be helpful and bring up this feedback from the
real world.  It's a shame how some people don't bother to stop and try to
understand what I am saying instead of just killing the messanger!  :-(


Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Web Programming Components using PHP Classes.
Look at: http://phpclasses.UpperDesign.com/[email protected]
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E-mail: [email protected]
URL: http://www.mlemos.e-na.net/
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