On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 23:58 -0400, markw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > I'm not a web developer. I suck at PHP, I do know PHP, I've written a > number of PHP extensions, and have had my CVS account for about 8 years, > but I'm not a web developer. I'm an architect and it is problematic when > applications developers make assumptions about things that can change. Application developers must make the assumption that the documentation they are reading is correct. > <soap_box> > Open source is about more than simply getting the supposed job done, it is > about getting it done right too. It is about using best methods. And yes, > it is about ego and pride about doing it better. Open source is about whatever the developer wants it to be about provided their source is open. If that happens to coincide with your vision fine, if not then it is still open source according to their vision. > In every profession there are many things that work within a limited range > of use, but break down quickly when the situations change subtly. A > professional knows their "craft" well enough to anticipate these things. That depends on what aspect of the definition of profession you choose to focus upon. I think that most professionals are such by virtue of doing what they do by way of a profession, not necessarily by way of being an expert. > The authors of too many open source / GPL PHP projects take the easy way > out and ignore the larger architectural issues that would make their > projects more widely usable. How long did it take bugzilla to support > PostgreSQL? How any PHP projects on sourceforge are tied to MySQL instead > of being flexible? This depends on the focus of the developer/development team. Supporting multiple databases is a choice, that they can make at the expense of other features. There's a 1 to 1 time trade here. They can choose to support postgres as you say, or they can choose to add some other feature that their thousands of MySQL fans want. The very nature of open source allows Joe Coder to add Postgres support himself if it is that important to him. if he doesn't have the skill, then it's time for him to learn or suck it in and quit whining. > Developers, either proprietary or OS/GPL, seek to create software of > lasting value. If you choose to limit your software design, then you limit > its value. Value is such a subjective concept. What you suggest is that open source developers should have to support every database platform out there so that their user base can have lasting value in the event that they should choose to suddenly switch to some other db platform than the one the project creator originally cared about. It all comes down to one man's trash being another man's treasure. If a bugzilla user never wanted to switch to postgres then they've had lasting value regardless of the missing feature. Cheers, Rob. -- .------------------------------------------------------------. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :------------------------------------------------------------: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `------------------------------------------------------------' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
