Stuart Herbert

I’ve just committed a new thttpd ebuild, with support for embedding php5 into the web server. This SAPI is a little different from all the ones that we currently support, as PHP must be compiled first, and then dropped into thttpd’s source directory for thttpd to compile and link against. I’ve added a new php5-sapi-r2 eclass to cope with this, and plan on migrating the existing php5 packages over to this in the coming weeks.

… and it has a couple of important changes.

First off, it works with the apache ebuilds currently in ~arch. It uses the apache-modules.eclass to detect for unsupported MPMs. It puts everything where it belongs. It fixes a PHP configure script bug which forces mod_php to be compiled with ZTS enabled whether you want it or not. (If you really want ZTS enabled, you can use the threads USE flag to switch it on).

Secondly, it no longer depends on dev-php/php at all. You may not have noticed, but when you install mod_php for the first time, PHP gets compiled twice. Once for mod_php, and once more to get the files that PEAR and PECL need. Those files were provided by dev-php/php. We’re changing it so that the PEAR and PECL ebuilds pull in those files (and, if necessary, dev-php/php) only when you need them. This should cut down on the time it takes to get Apache + mod_php up and running (or Apache + mod_fcgi + php-cgi for that matter

Thirdly, we’re making it possible to have php4 and php5 installed on the same box at the same time. We’re still working out all the details, but at worst you’ll be able to have mod_php4 but not mod_php5 installed at the same time. At least, that’s what I’m aiming for.

… and we’ve had another successful event. A huge “thank you” to everyone who turned up to share their interests and experience with Gentoo. And an equally huge “thank you” to LINX - The London Internet Exchange and The University of Salford for covering the costs of the event.

… with a pre-meet pub crawl in Manchester. We’re all meeting up @ the Stay Inn for 7:30pm before heading off. Hope to see lots of Gentoo users there!

The event proper is on Saturday. Thanks to sponsorship from The London Internet Exchange and The University of Salford, the event is free of charge. Registration’s now closed (as I’m setting off for Manchester shortly). Just turn up on the morning, and enjoy!

Those of us happily using PHP to power large, busy websites like The Impertial War Museum or The London Development Agency look at the PHP FUD trolls (especially on Planet Gentoo) and wonder what all the fuss is about.

PHP’s just a language. It’s what you do with it that counts. If you’re having trouble writing structured code using PHP, or having trouble making your web-based apps database-neutral, perhaps it’s that you need to look at your personal programming ability? There’s absolutely nothing in PHP preventing you from doing either …

What I will agree with is that the majority of PHP code that I read is shockingly bad. The fact that a lot of it runs on publically-accessible (and therefore hackable) boxes connected to the Internet makes this a real problem. Instead of vilifying these programmers, we’ll get better results by educating them instead.