[mapserver-users] MS4W version 4.0.0 pre-release 'alpha' available

Tue Jun 28 08:08:27 PDT 2016

Hi Andy,

First off I need to put out here, that I’m a PERL user from a long time back and still use it to this day. . .

In the case of GeoMOOSE at least, PHP and Perl do just about the same sorts of things behind the scenes and either can be used in the services side of GeoMOOSE, you can even mix them together for some things if you feel like it.

Think of each of these languages as a software glue of sorts, where they connect up different services such as MapServer and the Browser and pull things together for viewing.

bobb

On Jun 28, 2016, at 9:22 AM, Andy Colson <andy at squeakycode.net<mailto:andy at squeakycode.net>> wrote:

On 06/28/2016 08:27 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
On 2016-06-28 10:14 AM, Andy Colson wrote:
On 06/28/2016 06:09 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
On 2016-06-27 10:16 PM, Andy Colson wrote:
On 06/27/2016 01:41 PM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
Forwarding to the MapServer community, to get feedback and testing
with PHP 7.  Thanks.  -jeff

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [MS4W-Users] version 4.0.0 pre-release 'alpha' available
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2016 12:42:11 -0300
From: Jeff McKenna via MS4W-Users <ms4w-users at lists.ms4w.com<mailto:ms4w-users at lists.ms4w.com>>
Reply-To: ms4w-users at lists.ms4w.com<mailto:ms4w-users at lists.ms4w.com>
To: ms4w-users at lists.ms4w.com<mailto:ms4w-users at lists.ms4w.com>
CC: Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com<mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>>

Hello everyone,

Another alpha build (alpha3) is now available on the download server
(http://www.ms4w.com/release/experimental/), which contains PHP 7.0.8
as well as its extensions.  Thank you to those who had filed tickets
for specific PHP extensions (at http://ms4w.com/trac).  Note that most
of the extensions are loaded by default in PHP, so the best way to
check what extensions are included is through a phpinfo() call (there
is a 'phpinfo.php' file already included in /ms4w/apache/htdocs/
Technical users might want to check the configure command used when I
compiled this PHP, which is shown in the phpinfo() results (or here is
a screenshot, see the 5th row in the table:
http://pasteboard.co/1ZYfzJyX.png).  Don't be afraid to request
additional extensions through the MS4W tracker: http://ms4w.com/trac -
the time is now for feedback and requests.

PHP 7 is of course a big improvement (and I've invested almost 2
months of my time to rebuild the entire MS4W stack for PHP 7, which
requires the latest compiler).  You can check online for performance
improvements of PHP 7, most estimate 3X speed improvements with this
version (wow). An important note of course is that PHPMapScript is not
yet included in the alpha, as it definitely requires additional
development time and effort; so please please contact me directly if
your organization can help fund this effort.

Thank you for using MS4W.

-jeff

-------

Please check the 'HISTORY.txt' file in the alpha, for a list of
changes in your alpha build.

To use these alpha builds, be sure to install the 'Microsoft Visual
C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 2
' package first (vc_redist.x86.exe):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=51682  An
important note: because of this new compiler, old systems running
Windows XP (and possible Windows Server 2003) can no longer be
supported.  But of course if need be, I can provide custom builds with
the old compiler for those organizations requiring that.

I realize that so many organizations (many on this mailing list) rely
heavily on MS4W, so please contact me directly to help support its
development with funding.  It is very important.

Below is a list of recent changes.  If you want the latest stable MS4W
release, please download last month's MS4W 3.1.4 release (from
http://ms4w.com/).

*************************************

2016-06-27 Gateway Geomatics
  * ms4w version 4.0.0-alpha3 created. Notable changes are:

         - upgraded PHP to 7.0.8 with Visual Studio 2015 compiler
(trac ticket 5)
         - built additional PHP extensions with Visual Studio 2015
compiler:
           pdo_mysql (trac ticket 52), pdo_oci, oci8, bzip2
         - rebuilt all GDAL plugins and bindings
         - moved CSharp, Java, Python bindings into folder
/ms4w/gdalbindings/
         - updated script /gdalbindings/python/test-cgi-mapscript.py
for Python 3

         *PHPMapScript will not work in this version, needs dev work
+ funding

Forgive my dumbness.  But.  Whats the point of PHP if PHPMapScript
doesnt work?

Even if it did work, what's the point when 90% of the time spent is
inside mapserver, of which 50% of that time is spent reading
.shp/PostGIS/.tiff/etc.

I'm all for PHP 7, please don't misunderstand, but this:

PHP 7 is of course a big improvement (and I've invested almost 2 months

Makes it sound like my gis hosting is going to be 3x faster.  But its
not.  Right?

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your positive feedback on all this work.

Alpha releases are for the MS4W community to test in advance - many
MS4W applications are based on PHP (GeoMOOSE, Mapbender, p.mapper,
...) so these builds help those developers and users prepare for PHP 7
in their sites.

Talk soon,

-jeff

Wow.  I was a bit dickish, huh.  Sorry about that.  Re-reading my post I
realize I was a bit hostile.

Perhaps I could re-ask and we could start over?  I am curious about
performance.

PHP 7 is faster, yes, but an average gis site spends more time inside
mapserver code than in php code, I assume, so the new performance
benefits of PHP 7 aren't going to speed up my site.  Is this assumption
correct?  Or might I see faster maps?

Sorry again, Jeff.

Thanks Andy, I think we both mean well.

It is true that at the moment I can't confirm yet all these sites with their "benchmarks" stating such a big performance improvement from PHP 7.  I also can't confirm how this will impact map drawing speeds through PHPMapScript.  I guess the point of these alphas and my work is to push this along, help PHP 7 + MapServer community along.  This was a big hurdle for me (PHP 7 required the latest Visual Studio compiler, and if you have ever tried to compile on Windows, that means the whole MapServer and GDAL stack, and don't forget I also compile the whole Apache+modules and PHP+extensions stack on Windows, which is quite a massive effort - even the PHP dev team is aware of my MS4W work now on Windows).

This was a big first step, and I agree it could be taken as sort of a tease ("well ok, but where is PHPMapScript?"), ha, of course, good point.  I hope this helps advance things, help things move along, as (when I first mentioned MapServer + PHP 7 back in December last year) I really feel that this is very important for the MapServer community, but spoken of very little.

I did get a response back from the Mapbender dev team already, and I'm sure other dev teams will be working towards PHP 7 and keeping this momentum going.

-jeff

My current site is written in Perl, but if PHP 7 can give me a 2x or 3x boost, I'd re-write it in a second.  I'll be interested to hear about this going forward.

Thanks again,

-Andy

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