On 3 Apr 2014, at 10:35, Pierre Joye <[email protected]> wrote:
>> The short form is:
>>
>> We should not name the next version of PHP: PHP6, for 2 reasons:
>> 1. It will cause confusion in those least able to adapt
>> 2. It costs us nothing, hurts us in no way, to name it something else
>
> It hurts us. We were pathetic in our previous attempt for php 6, which
> by the way was never released nor existed. We will be clowns by
> skipping a version for some totally random reasons.
Just a few cents from a long-time lurker: I see huge value in standing up, saying publicly that it
has been recognised that mistakes were made, that lessons have been learned, and that everything is
being done to minimise any potentially confusing fallout. Do you really think that your
embarrassment over what happened (that’s how the above reads to me, sorry if that’s not what you
meant) should be a factor in any way at all?
The main (and possibly only) mistake, as identified elsewhere in this thread, was naming PHP 6 as v6
before it was ready for release. I think there’s been enough leakage of features that are now
associated with that name to make it reasonable to put the whole thing away and start fresh with
PHP.next (likely PHP 7 by the time it’s ready for release). And anyone who thinks it matters whose
fault it is should maybe think about whether it’s more important to assign blame or create a
useful tool!
I also think it’s incredibly naive to believe that any level of publicity campaign could
adequately get the message out that the PHP 6 that has been released bears no resemblance to the PHP
6 that has been in discussion for the past 10 years. Several people have eluded to what the focus of
internals development "should" be, and regardless of what the technical goals are surely
the overriding goal should be to create a tool that helps people get stuff done.
I’d happily wear clown make up for a month if I thought it would help even a handful of developers
using my product avoid wasting time when it could have been avoided!
-Stuart
--
Stuart Dallas
3ft9 Ltd
http://3ft9.com/