On Tue, 2010-06-22 at 13:51 +0000, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
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> > Is there any technical obstacle to anyone creating PL/PHP? I am
> > cruious as to why it doesn't alreay exist.
>
> Obviously we need to improve our documentation. What led you to
> believe it does not exist? As pointed out downthread, it does
> exist (if not maintained).
It is maintained. We address items as they come in. Is it currently
being developed for new features? No.
>
> > I mean, I love my Tcl support, and I know this is part of PG's
> > legacy... but Tcl and no PHP? I figure there's a tech reason for
> > this - the demand must be there! No?
>
> No, I'd say the demand is most definitely not there. I support a
> great number of clients, and pretty much everyone uses pl/pgsql,
> a great many use pl/perl, and a handful use pl/tcl or pl/python
> or pl/ruby. Nobody uses pl/php.
People do use it but it certainly doesn't have the usage of pl/python or
pl/perl.
>
> Some major strikes against it (consider these todo items for
> those who would like to see pl/php live again):
>
> * No trusted/untrusted versions
This is false. There are both.
> * Not in core
True. Check the archives there were long discussions as to why it won't
work. Basically the build path of PHP isn't really compatible with the
build path of PostgreSQL.
> * Not even in contrib or pgfoundry or github
No. No reason to be.
> * It seems to suffer from a lot of configuration issues
> * Hard to find:
> ** First google hit on pl/php is projects.commandprompt.com/public/plphp
> ** Which simply says: Go here instead: https://redmine.commandprompt.com/
No it doesn't (but I am not sure when this was fixed).
> * The documentation is a mess (dead URLs, mislabelled sections)
Yeah we probably need to update it from the migration from Trac.
> * PHP is not as stable, mature, secure, or well designed as Perl/Tcl/Python.
No it is just more popular, more widely used and has a larger community.
(Oh: And remember, I am a python guy)
Joshua D. Drake
--
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