over the last few months after finally getting over my ignorance of PEAR beyond it being a hodge podge of packages of dubious quality I've been questioning whether pearifying my future and past code is worthwhile. The answer is a resounding YES.

Unfortunately, there are some barriers for most people to get into the PEAR world (including the lack of the "coolest packages") with some of the perceived barriers including:

• PEAR will require large scale changes to my shiny new cool code
• PEAR only allows proposals for complete functional code
• PEAR is elitist
• PEAR is fossilised

He also talks about PEAR packages and dispels one of the most popular myths about the package repository - "you can't use PEAR on a shared host".

Nexen recently posted a great survey on PHP usage (perhaps they beat NetCraft to the punch this time?). We've seen these trends before: PHP is on the steady rise for numbers of installations. Coupled with Apache, it is the most popular web development platform around.

My question is: does that really matter?

By "matter" I mean, "does it affect PHP's credibility in a positive way?"; and also: "does it prove anything?"

He wonders if the numbers that show on the surveys are PHP usage because people want to use it, or if it's simply that it's preinstalled in so many places these days (and has a low "barrier to entry") that it's being mistaken for popularity. He also mentions something that I think we all, as PHP developers and ambassadors, should think about:

So, rather than the community resting on its collective laurels for one more year of increased installations, I encourage us all to consider what can be done to promote PHP through education, standards, and best practices to its rightful place as much, much more than simply a popular web development language. ]]> Fri, 06 Jan 2006 07:08:53 -0600