The PEAR group recently published New Guidelines for BC breaking releases. The idea is simple, for example one variant would be:
Old API: MyPackage-1.2.tgz
New API: MyPackage_2-0.9.tgz
Month November 2003
snaps.mysql.com
Yep, finally, its there: snaps.mysql.com.
Latest Info on New MySQL Extension
Zak and Georg held a presentation on the new PHP MySQL extension (mysqli) in Hamburg. I’ve attended this presentation where they summarized all the infos about the latest development. Their slides are available online – a must-read for all PHP developers with lots of useful tips!
Stigmergy is the Answer
Ever wondered why the Web works? Not from a technical, but from a sociologic viewpoint: Why do human beings still invent and use the Web?
Stigmergy is the answer, says Joe Gregorio:
The World-Wide Web is human stigmergy. The web and it’s ability to let anyone read anything and also to write back to that environment allows stigmeric communication between humans. Some of the most powerful forces on the web today, Google and weblogs are fundamentally driven by stigmeric communication and their behaviour follows similar natural systems like Ant Trails and Nest Building that are accomplished using stigmergy. The web is new. In the context of written human history is barely a blink of an eye. Yet as new as the web is, it is already showing it’s ability to support complex human interactions that mimic natural systems use of stigmergy. And were just getting started…
Now you wonder what Stigmergy is? It’s all explained in Joe Gregorios blog entry on Stigmergy.
Remote, Remoter, the Remotest
No, this posting is not about Remote Procedure Calls, it’s about the “island” I currently spend my vacation: Hallig Langeness. I quoted “island”, because geologically, a Hallig is not an island as it consists of sand and has been created by the sea, which would also wash it away over time, if humans had not “fixed” the coast with stones.
Right now, it’s only Zak, Georg Richter, and me who are on Mayenswarft. Derick was with us for some days, as well as Christian and Sabine. Ulf and Jan visited us for a weekend.
Today is our last day, the tide is high, the wind strong and cold (althoug Zak, as a Canadian, feels comfortable with the temperature).
Pictures are available online from Derick and Christian.
We got Internet here (3 persons sharing 56k), no light on the streets (err, “streets”), 120 inhabitants, thousands of birds, one restaurant (yammi food!), no bakery, no supermarket, no speed limits, no police.
Back on track tomorrow, crossing the Baltic Sea with a ferry, and then making our way back to civilization…
Article on MySQL Transactions in "iX", German Magazine for Professionals
Today, the current issue of iX has published my article on transactions in MySQL. It’s a comprehensive and brief introduction to the topic. The text is written in German. To obtain it, you buy iX at a kiosk or in a fiew weeks online in the virtual kiosk.
OSCOM: Proud to be a Member
Today, I became a member of OSCOM. I am particularly proud of this membership, because the spirit of OSCOM is unique, the current members are great individuals, and the objective a necessity:
The goal is to bring together as many great brains as possible to build a network and grow the community of open source content management.
Expect some interesting events to take place in Germany in the upcoming year which I will co-organise. More to come…
I am also happy that Florian has as well been welcomed as a new OSCOM member today.
To PEAR or to disaPEAR
… is the question of a current thread being discussed on pear-dev. Discussion mainly circles around “forking” PEAR to make a PEAR2 which might break BC to previous packages, run on PHP5 only, etc. Some quotes:
Stopping in the middle to start new isn’t the best way I think. (Daniel Khan)
Having PEAR 2 is basically the same like the Ferrari F1 Team changing the motor, because the mechanicians aren’t working properly. (Martin Jansen)
The main problem i saw in PEAR since the begining wasnt technical, was as someone said, managerial. I can name a lot of good technical companies/technologies that disappear even being the best option in the
market. Betmax is classical, Netscape is the new one. PEAR? Will not make a big wave if it disapPEAR, looking at the current state of affairs. (S. Rocha)
What actually prevents us from creating a new pear to even better handle upgrade to PHP5 and repair some definite technical issues, etc.? (Tobias Schlitt)
“You heard that? PEAR was so broken they had to start it all over! I am not touching the thing with a 10 feet pole!” (Alexey Borzov)
Personally, I would love to see a new start with packages that consequently use PHP5’s OO features. Who really cares about the PHP4 OO features once he knows what PHP5 can do? Hence, who really cares about the old PEAR if there’s a PEAR for PHP 5? As PHP4 OO is not the best choice for mission critical projects, anyone seriously doing OO with PHP in the future, will use PHP5 and related packages from the new PEAR.
via pear-dev
Installing PCMCIA wlan-ng on SuSe 9.0
Finally I got my new Netgear WAG511 installed on SuSe 9.0. Here are some tips:
1. Carefully read SuSe’s instructions at http://portal.suse.de/sdb/en/2002/11/wavelan.html.
2. Then, as suggested there, read very carefully ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/README and procede as described.
3. Now you can configure wlan0 with Yast2’s network device GUI.
– Always check /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan0 if STARTMODE is still set to ‘hotplug’. This parameter might be overwritten to be ‘onboot’ by Yast2.
4. I was only able to use my Netgear WGR614 access point only after explicitly specifying the Gateway and DNS addresses for my PCMCIA card, as well as the IP address in Yast2. It did not help to specify them in ifcfg-wlan0, at least not for the Gateway and DNS.
5. After performing any changes, restart the card as root with ‘rcpcmcia restart’. With ‘iwconfig’ you can check if the access point has been found. Try ‘ifconfig’ to see if the correct IP, netmask, broadcast addresses are used. ‘route’ allows you to see if the default gateway is set. If not, type ‘route add default gw x.x.x.x dev wlan0’ which will set the default gateway manually. Configuring it with Yast2 should set the default gateway automatically upon startup or after ‘rcpcmcia restart’.
6. Enjoy your next generation WLAN based on the 802.11g standard with 54Mb/s 🙂
Thanks to Christian Zonsius who helped me getting through the final steps to make it work!
Sandro Groganz 