[PHP-DEV] The PHP Platform

[Ken Egervari]

Hello everyone,   I think as we go forward with PHP and as PHP 5 is nearing, shouldn't we planning on developing a PHP Platform?  Basically the Java or .NET Platform - a set of stable and well written class libraries in which everyone can use?  Classes that make sense for every day and maybe not-so every day PHP development?  With .NET and Java out there, PHP is really falling short.  It's not even efficient to develop in any more other than that its tools are free.  I tried to start such an initiative with eXtremePHP, but only 2 developers go so far.  We need a community to help build a large platform that provides classes for everything a PHP developer might need.   Why am I saying this?  Well, looking at DOM XML, PHP still hasn't gotten it right.  Even though there are several great implementations out there in other languages, PHP is slowly building towards those already bugged-out, well written designs.  I was recently doing a project and now that PHP 4.1.2 has changed the DOM XML library without making any changes to the documentation, this move seriously messed up my work as well as many others.  In my case, I have to use the latest version so I had to migrate a lot of code.  I know that the library was considered experimental, but the design decisions were made poorly while they could have just emulated the w3c bindings which were already thought out and used across the world as far as Java and many other languages are concerned.  I think the PHP developers and community should start moving towards a mature platform with an even larger goal in mind rather than just a set of functions.  With the RAD tools provided by .NET and Java, PHP is giving less and less of a reason for capable developers to use the language because it really only solves the needs of HTML developers that need some dynamic functionality to their sites.  I guess the future is in the hands of its leaders to make the right calls.  It will be a test to see which calls are made.   Ken