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Hello Everyone,

Being a senior data center engineer and manager of Windows Operations in a major data center, I have to say that PHP is not ready for the data center, in terms of it's graphics capabilities. I have tried for 2 weeks now to get any image command to work in PHP on W2k/IIS5 with no luck at all?.frustration is in the past, PHP just won?t be used for graphics, Java maybe, but not PHP.  Oh, PHP is working great as far as SQL 2000 interaction, and all the standard PHP functions. But for the end user, the eye candy is everything, they don?t really care (or know) how you make a call to the database. I find the documentation on GD and ImageMagick to be cryptic at best, and putting a compiler on a production server is just not done/will never be done. There is no way any midlevel engineer will ever be able to re-deploy (or even deploy) PHP?s graphic functions and meet an SLA?..return to service will not happen.
It seems to me that since PHP has image functions (and we are visual beings) that those functions and the supporting code should be part of PHP itself?..no installation hassles at all, no third party plug-ins. I have perused many books on PHP, many promising fantastic things one can do with graphics, but few documenting the subject, and none addressing how to get the graphics function installed adequately?.
It?s fine for developers to punch out text all day on VI in the dark, oblivious to production environs, but that does not happen in the Windows world.

At this moment, I have to rule (I maintain the best practices of our data center) that any site using PHP may not use any PHP graphics or Image functions.

Just sending you all a reality check, sincerely

Greg Thornton