NYCPHP Meetup

[Gerald Timothy Quimpo]

hello all,

I've been evaluation quite a few PHP programs (mainly bug tracking and
helpdesk software, but other things too) and I find that there are many
problems with version and server configuration incompatibilities.  

1.  Version incompatibilities example:
     the software was developed on PHP 3.x or 4.0.x.  It depends on
     get and post variables being globals (PHP 3.x) or in the 
     $HTTP_GET_VARS or $HTTP_POST_VARS arrays (deprecated
     in PHP 4.2.x).

2.  Server configuration incompatibilities example:
     Software was developed for the same version of PHP that it is
     to be deployed on, but the deployment server uses safe_mode,
     or register_globals_off, while the code assumes that register_globals
     is on.

Those are just the most common incompatibilities.  There are many more
incompatibilities possible, and combinations of incompatibilities too, since
some configuration settings and version differences will interact with
many other settings and differences.

It is possible (but unpleasant and undesirable) to hack the code to make
it work with the deployment configuration.  This is undesirable though,
because when the next version comes out, the same code hacking would
have to be done.

The patches could be sent to the author of the software, but it might not be
applied.  Even if applied, the code gets complicated because there will be
version checks everywhere.  there will also be checks as to whether a 
setting is set correctly, and if not, then calls made to ini_set(...) or
import_request_variables(...) or need to set up per-directory php.ini
files, etc).

My question is, is there a standard (or even just an emerging standard) on
how to deal with these issues in PHP code?  is there a recommended library
of functions that does all these checks (e.g., Do_PHP30_Compat() or 
something similar) so that PHP 3.0 standard global variable behavior
works.  

A discussion of best practices would be interesting.  My particular 
interest, though, is in what the emerging standard (tending to actually 
be used by PHP developers of important projects) is. 

I've tried to install maybe 8 different bug tracking systems.  Some of them
are perl (most were rejected because they lacked the features i wanted),
many were PHP (most were rejected because i'm using PHP 4.2 and most of
them won't work with 4.2 with default security but not in safe_mode.  i could
get them to work, but that would require massive modification of the code).

I've got bugzilla working.  It's rather too much for what I need, but it *is*
working, and I can deal with it.  I'd like to stay with PHP products though
since i know php and i can't stand perl.

But of course this isn't really about bugtracking or helpdesk software.
It's a general question involving the evolution of best practices in
the development of PHP software.

tiger

-- 
Gerald Timothy Quimpo  tiger*quimpo*org gquimpo*sni-inc.com tiger*sni*ph
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