PHP Protest

Although, I've read about changes and was impressed with string handling optimizations in different functions and many other features, especially short arrays, which would be really interesting to try them out, still I wouldn't use this PHP fork more than just a playground to try out new features. Mainly because of its undetermined future and compatibility with further PHP releases.

But in my opinion it wasn't really Robert's intention to think about PHP fork in a way of alternative to standard PHP. It was more like a protest, an action to express concerns of many PHP developers about what is really happening in PHP Core Development. About time it takes to decide and implement features, about language syntax novelties which might ease development of PHP applications, but are so often denied by PHP Core Developers.

So best thing we could do is spread the word about PHP fork and express our opinions about its separate features and show PHP community that PHP developers are ready for innovations, that they are not afraid of trying them out.

Exactly. Although I did not read anywhere Robert saying it was a protest, the process of submitting a proposal for a new feature sometimes seems like torture to the proponent, even when the proponent has already a fully working patch to implement the proposed feature, or even worse when you are just proposing a feature without having any patch to submit.

Reading the PHP internals list, I always get the impression that some developers that do it on purpose to boycott most of the proposed features. Its nuts.

Sometimes the excuses to not accept a proposed feature are ridiculous, like "I do not see the need for that feature" which often means "I do not understand what that feature will actually be useful for".

If people are proposing features, it is because they need them. That should be evident especially when they have already gone through the effort of developing a working patch to implement the feature.

There is a lot of needless cynicism in the PHP internals list.