Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>
> Hi, you are reported to know something about a Debian PHP policy, in
> particular as concerns names of PHP "library" packages. I would love
> to see it, but I couldn't find it either on the Debian web site or in
> the php4 package. Could you point me to it? Thanks.
Chris was likely being sarcastic when he said "Feel free to speak with
Adam Conrad about PHP policy, he loves it." That said, there is a PHP
policy in the works, and while it isn't currently published, when it is,
compliance with said policy will be a release goal for Sarge+1. With
that in mind, we try to warn people about things that will be a pain to
change later (like misnamed packages), so they only have to name them
once. :)
In the case of PHP libraries, we've come to the conclusion that
uncompiled class libraries (like PEAR stuff, and other such class
collections) should be named "php-$(package)". See php-file and
php-date as examples. For compiled binary extensions, they are named
php{3,4,5}-$(extension), depending on which version of PHP they are
compiled for.
Adherence to this vaporware policy is certainly not mandatory at this
point, but renaming packages and providing a smooth upgrade path is a
pain in the ass, so you may as well just do it this way from the start,
so you're not asked to change it later. :)
... Adam
