[Phplib-users] Ruminations on the Situation

[Bob B. <bo...@iN...>]

It's sad to see what used to be a very stable, usable library descend into 
chaos, confusion and anarchy ... people heading off in their own 
directions, claiming the umbrella of phpLib but naming their rewrites after 
themselves, all with seemingly no coordination or direction or vision 
whatsoever.  No wonder the need for PEAR was so immediately obvious to so 
many people - not that PEAR was the best choice (in many ways worse than 
phpLib), but I really do understand why the core PHP developers decided on 
something other than phpLib.

The CVS is in such a mess that someone has to write a how-to and post it on 
a personal web site!  Then Giancarlo writes and releases several scripts 
(Nathan - did I miss the announcement that he is now a new "committee of 1" 
determining the philosophy and direction of the project?) and there goes 
Donncha's roadmap again ...

Giancarlo, before you immediately flame me, I appreciate and admire your 
work - and this is nowhere near "personal".  I just don't think your 
unilateral actions have a place in the overall scheme of things.  We 
desperately need someone, or a group of "someones", who will coordinate 
this project.

I say this knowing full well that the immediate response is "Why don't you 
do it, Bob?" and that my answer is the same as everyone else's - "I don't 
have the time" ... which, I suppose, in many people's minds, removes my 
right to complain.  But that's why the subject is "Ruminations" and not 
"Problems" ...

KK has moved on to other projects, but his hand on the tiller and his 
vision are sorely missed, imho.  We've been using phpLib in our work here 
for almost 4 years now, and in spite of the lack of "official" progress and 
register_globals and PHP4 and all the meanderings of this past 18 months or 
so, we still rely on the library -- but on our own very highly modified 
version of 7.2 -- on every site we do ... regardless of the installation, 
regardless of the OS, and regardless of all the latest and greatest 
MyCodeIsBetter streams that are cropping up.

A lot of people have spent long hours on this library, and for their code 
(as well as the learning experience that they've provided me), I'm very 
grateful.  But my company can't afford to base our work on something that 
is no longer predictably (please note that I said "predictably") reliable ...

Above all, after all, and with personal appreciation -- thanks, KK ...

Bob.