On Jul 14, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Gwynne Raskind wrote:
This message is being re-sent without attachment as it seems
several people did not receive it the first time.
For some time now, the IRC channel for PHP documentation has been
buzzing with talk of all the myriad problems and drawbacks of both
1) the current doc buildsystem, and 2) livedocs. I got my dander up
about it one night and drew up a formal proposal document
describing in detail a completely new, from-scratch system to
replace the nightmarish hacks that exist right now. The latest
version of the proposal is available live at <http://
phpdoc.gwynne.dyndns.org/Buildsystem-proposal.pdf>, and I have
attached the most recent revision (as of tonight) to this message
as well. Comments and votes are definitely wanted (especially on
the "what's the name of the system" debate described in the
proposal). The goal of the initial proposal is to gather enough
support for the idea to have our own CVS module created to work
within, as well as attendant mailing list and anything else deemed
necessary. Not mentioned in the proposal document at the moment,
but important, is the fact that this system is intended for general
use both inside and outside PHP.
I like this very much and am hopeful that Hannes and Gwynne will
spearhead and lead the new build system efforts from the ground up.
This system is designed, from start to finish, to perform this task
and will be generic enough to easily be used elsewhere... like for
other php.net projects (like peardoc) and freely available for non-
PHP.net projects. It's unfortunate we'll lose many hours of work from
the past (build and livedocs) but overall it'll be worth it
especially given that we have people eager to work on it now. Also to
be clear, this system will replace both the current build system and
livedocs. I prefer we take the PHP route for [most] everything even
if it means a performance hit in a few places. I don't want to use
make, shell scripts, configure, external tools... but rather just
your basic PHP 5.2.x installation on any OS should do. This is in the
proposal. And requiring PHP 5.2.x+ is fine.
Gwynne has started a prototype for this so assuming we agree to move
forward let's get it going in CVS soon. I have no strong feelings for
a particular name but lean towards PhD. Initial karma will likely be
given to Gwynne and Hannes and then others as interest is expressed.
As for a license, not sure about that. Since we are developing under
the PHP.net umbrella I'm guessing we'll use the PHP License.
Regards,
Philip
