Andrea Faulds wrote (on 20/07/2014):
I’ve cancelled the vote because I don’t think the case for 6 is sufficiently
fleshed out. The RFC is now massively imbalanced in favour of 7, which isn’t
really fair to the 6 side, and I don’t think we can hold a vote while that’s
still the case.
I've only skim read the recent discussion, and the current state of the
RFC, because I've been busy, and I only have a few minutes left of my
lunch break now, but it occurred to me before, and is even more obvious
now, that the RFC would be much better with a different structure.
Currently, it's laid out in what you might call an "adversarial" style -
arguments for one side, then arguments for the other; this doesn't lend
itself well to summarising all the previous discussions, because it just
reads as a discussion of its own.
(Just to be clear here: I don't mean "adversarial" as any kind of
criticism of the debate, just as a technical description of the RFC's
style.)
A vote in a situation like this should, if possible, be a means of
measuring a consensus, not a replacement for one. We're not electing the
next President of PHP, so everyone should be focussing on understanding
the issues, not hoping that their side will win at the ballot box.
I suggest a completely different structure, where the RFC is split
instead into *topics* or *categories* of argument. Then the various
points raised in debate can be laid out without judgement, and there is
less need to repeat the view that point X is less important than point
Y, since it is up to the reader to conclude that.
There is no need to try and "win" each of these sections for one side or
the other, as the reader is not being asked to tally up a number of
points for and against, but to weigh up the whole situation.
Here are some of the headings which could be included:
- Consistency with previous release numbering
- Consistency with other projects
- Potential for confusion about reasons for the skip
- Existing printed material from previous "PHP 6"
- Existing online material from previous "PHP 6" (can be harder to date
than printed material)
- Mindshare of previous "PHP 6" (people who heard about it and still
associate it with Unicode)
- Existing material already mentioning the new version as "PHP 6"
- Superstitions etc (which I'm guessing no one actually takes seriously)
I think that covers everything from *both* sides of the current RFC, but
there may be other things that came up in discussion that aren't
mentioned because they don't fit well in the current structure.
Regards,
--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
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