Re: PHP Specification

From: Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 08:19:09 +0000
Subject: Re: PHP Specification
References: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  Groups: php.internals 
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Gary Mort wrote:

If anybody thinks there is need for a specification they can start
writing it and look for help and review.


What would be the process for that?  The RFC process covers adding new features
and removing deprecated features.

The documentation process covers documenting how to use certain features.

Neither of these processes seem to be a direct fit for specifying how certain
features should handle undocumented features.


Neither process provides a good 'quide' to actually using PHP and it is that which is missing!

The RFC documentation provides a self contained description of an element of the language with little reference to how it fits into the whole. This is then used as the base for the relevant documentation which similarly documents 'a function' or 'a process' with a greater or lesser level of completeness, but neither of them provide any 'dovetail' into an overall user guide to PHP.

In many cases 'Undocumented' features appear as comment footnotes, and these become unofficial guide lines, so something which has not been considered properly in the original design can become standard by virtue of the fact it does have some random documentation.

A specification would provide an overview of how to design a PHP application given all of the - in some cases difficult to understand - new features that are being added.

I've got to the point where it would be nice to know just what is 'undocumented' in relation to simply using UTF-8 in PHP5. It would seem that the majority of peoples use of it is already covered? It is just adding the more complex string handling IN the core which is missing? But there is not a document that actually shows where UTF-8 can be used safely at the moment?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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