Month: November 2012

Microsoft has failed

Microsoft has failed

Microsoft is largely irrelevant to computing of late, the only markets they still play in are evaporating with stunning rapidity. Their long history of circling the wagons tighter and tighter works decently as long as there is not a credible alternative, and that strategy has been the entirety of the Microsoft playbook for so long that there is nothing else now. It works, and as the walls grow higher, customer enmity builds while the value of an alternative grows. This cycle repeats as long as there is no alternative. If there is, everything unravels with frightening rapidity.

Read the whole thing – it’s a really good summary of where Microsoft stands today.

phing fatal error after upgrade to 2.4.13

If you are using phing for building and deploying projects (and you should), and using Remi repository for PHP 5.3 and related tools for CentOs and RedHat, be prepared to see a problem with phing and build.xml files that use conditions in If.   Here is a sample snippet from the build.xml:

<!-- Directory separator based on the current file system -->
<property name="ds" value="\" />
<if>
  <equals arg1="${host.fstype}" arg2="UNIX" />
  <then>
    <property name="ds" value="/" override="yes" />
  </then>
</if>

and here is the error:

Error reading project file [wrapped: build.xml:39:20: Error initializing nested element <equals> [wrapped: equals (unknown) doesn't support the 'arg1' attribute.]]

The bug #943 has already been filed in assigned in phing trac, and after a brief chat with devs in IRC channel, it seems like it will be fixed soon (by 2.4.14 release). The best cause of action for now though is reverting back phing 2.4.12.