PHPCSStandards vs squizlabs

[gintsmurans]

Hi!

We were using squizlabs/php_codesniffer then it became abandoned. Switched to PHPCSStandards/PHP_CodeSniffer then that became abandoned on packagist. Now, the repo is PHPCSStandards/PHP_CodeSniffer but package on packagist is squizlabs/php_codesniffer.

Just wanted to point it out that its confusing and regardless of existing pipelines it would make much more sense to just publish under the new name.

[jrfnl]

@gintsmurans I hear you, but changing the canonical name on Packagist would mean that some 500.000+ packages need to update their composer.json file(s) and I've been through that before (with a package with a much much smaller userbase than this at the time) and it takes years and years and years and never gets fully sorted out.

I'd rather have some people experiencing some minor confusion, than hundreds of thousand projects no longer getting new versions of the package.

[jrfnl]

As a side-note: do you experience the same confusion over the phpunit/phpunit package being maintained in https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/ ?

[gintsmurans]

Confusing part is that there are two packages on the packagist. And it was even more confusing because at first squizlabs was abandoned, we switched to the PHPCSStandards, then PHPCSStandards bacame abandoned, but when you open https://packagist.org/packages/phpcsstandards/php_codesniffer it states in README "This package is the official continuation of the now abandoned PHP_CodeSniffer package which was created by Squizlabs". Which makes me question, which here is the truly final not abandoned one?

I have now figured it out (took some time looking around this repo issues where at some random comment it was mentioned that it will be published under squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer), but if you are sticking with the squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer I would suggest just removing PHPCSStandards/PHP_CodeSniffer from packagist entirely.

[jrfnl]

There are actually even more "PHP_CodeSniffer" packages on Packagist.

Either way, the squizlabs package on Packagist was never abandoned. The squizlabs git repo was.

If you want to read up on how things happened, have a read through these tickets (essentially the same, but different comment threads):

• The Future of PHP_CodeSniffer squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer#3932
• The Future of PHP_CodeSniffer #109

These issues are prominently pinned to the top of the issue list in both repos, exactly to make sure this clarifying history can be found as easily as possible.

Essentially, the Packagist packages are now both the same and both update from the same source (this repo), but as long as there are people using the PHPCSStandards one, it cannot be removed, which likely means, it can never be removed.
And believe me, from the very start, I've made it a point to notify every (public) repo which started using that package name to stop and use the squizlabs package name instead. Unfortunately, even being the maintainer of this package, still doesn't mean people actually listen.

Which makes me question, which here is the truly final not abandoned one?

As I stated before and have everywhere, including in the above tickets and in all communication around this: use the squizlabs/php_codesniffer package and this repo (PHPCSStandards).

[fredden]

Linking for visibility: #135