Question

When building some of my PHP apps, a lot of the functionality could be coded using PEAR/PECL modules, however, the fact that some people using it may not have the access to install things, It poses a puzzler for me.

Should I forsake some users to use PEAR/PECL for functionality, where these will allow me to have a system coded up quicker than if I wrote my own functionality, but eans that it will exclude certain people from using it.

Answer 1

It partly depends on how much time you have, and the purpose of the project. If you’re just trying to make something that works, go with PEAR/PECL. If you’re trying to learn to be a better programmer, and you have the time, then I’d recommend taking the effort to write your own versions. Once you understand the innards of whatever you’re trying to replace, you may want to switch to the PEAR/PECL version so that you’re not wasting time reimplementing what has already been implemented…

…but on the other hand, preexisting tools don’t always do exactly what you need, and sometimes have overhead that doesn’t do you any good. This is why Unix command-line tools are so small and narrow of purpose; nobody really needs a version of ‘ls’ that can do anything besides what ‘ls’ can currently do. Your version of whatever PEAR library will, by virtue of being written by you, do exactly what you need doing. It requires some careful thought…

…but on the gripping hand, don’t spend too much time thinking about it. Spend five minutes, make a decision, and start coding. Even if you make the wrong decision, you’ll at least have gotten more practice coding. 🙂