Fri Dec 28, 2007
The short version:
 - The new-ref-struct (<set>s of <set>s of <book>s) solved
   the "multiple manuals" problem
 - If someone wants to move the "developers" (internals)
   manual to http://dev.php.net, feel free to do so


References:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=phpdoc&m=104332017120572&w=2

[CURRENT STATE]

What's wrong?

The current manual contains developers information for developing
PHP not to develop with PHP:

- ZendAPI docs        (43 Extending PHP 4.0)
- Streams devolopment (Streams API for PHP Extension Authors)
- extending PHP 3     (Appendix E. Extending PHP)

and maybe more....

Problems:

- Some users may get confused with them (especially with streams
  now introduced in PHP 4.3.0)
- Manual searches may return results in those pages, and users can
  unintentionally get into it...

[SOLUTION]

Have a separate users manual and developers manual.
The developers manual is only available in english,
no translations.

Contents of developers manual

Should be moved from the current manual:
- ZendAPI docs
- Streams devolopment
- PHP3 devel stuff (BC and history)

There is more to developing php source than
simply the above mentioned stuff.

Additional content:

- information found within the various README's in the php4 source
- some ZE2 information
- information about PECL and link to the PEAR manual.
- detailed explanation of an example extension
- explanation of the versioning system
- politics

Sun Jan 26 2003
Agreement: 
 - split the current docs into a user and developer manual
 - dev manual only in english
 - content as described above (and more?)

[WEBSITE]

http://dev.php.net dedicated to develop PHP

Sun Jan 26 2003
Agreement: no vote against ;-)


[TECHNICAL STUFF]

How to split and how to build?
Possible solutions:

(A) separate CVS module for the dev manual with its own
    seperated buildsystem.

    Problems:
    We would probably move the docs and the build system there, and then we
    will have another copy of the build system, which is even currently gets
    out of control.

To avoid this problems:

(B) Keep the dev manual in the phpdoc module keeps easier control over the
    files. Create a separate build system, first time optimized for this two
    manuals.

(C) Creating TWO new cvs modules, one for the build system and one for the
    devmanual, and just checkout it as the translations are checked out now,
    alongside the documentation module. So we can start working on that unified
    build system...

Sun Jan 26 2003
Agreement:
- no separate CVS module for the dev manual with its own forked
  build system. Its to hard to maintain.
