This post originated from an RSS feed registered with PHP Buzz by Tobias Schlitt. Original Post: Trackbacks on PEARWeb Feed Title: Tobias Schlitt - Weblog Feed URL: http://php-applications.de/lists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundlists/listinfo/phpug-dortmundapplications/blog/rss.php?category=1_PEAR&version=0.91 Feed Description: a passion for php Latest PHP Buzz Posts Latest PHP Buzz Posts by Tobias Schlitt Latest Posts From Tobias Schlitt - Weblog

Inspired by a blog entry of Sebastian Bergmann, I implemented trackbacks for PEAR packages on PEARWeb.

So, what does this exactly mean? I think, everyone reading blogs should know, what a trackback is. If not, here is a little abstract on that from the Movabletype website (where more detailed information can be found):

In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, "This is something you may be interested in." To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.

In general trackbacks are used in weblogs, to indicate that 2 blog entries are related to each other: So, while writing about Sebastians "On Blogs, Portals and Conference Websites" a trackback ping is send to Sebastians weblog. This will result in a link to my entry presented on Sebastians blog entry. Everyone reading Sebastians entry will know, that I refered to it and wrote something related to it.

That so far to the system of trackbacks. But what does all that have to do with PEARWeb and PEAR packages?

A huge lot of open source developers document their projects progress, information on other interessting projects and other development related stuff in their weblogs. PEAR (in some way) lacks documentation. So, if someone writes a blog entry on a PEAR package he can send a trackback ping to indicate, that he created another piece of documentation. A link will automatically be placed on the package info page of the related PEAR package.

For example, I will generate a new trackback by linking to my package Net_FTP. This is then available here.

I'm personally very keen on the idea of trackbacks and I know, that several people think that this blogging culture is just a hype without any real sense. But, as long as this hype lasts, having trackbacks on PEARWeb will bring PEAR some more documentation and that's good. If the idea works, it will also be possible to add trackbacks to more elements of PEARWeb, like user info pages, PEPr proposals,...

^{S9Y currently has some problems with backtracking the shortcut URL for package info pages (like http://pear.php.net/Net_FTP), since it cannot handle HTTP redirect headers, which are used on PEARWeb for the short way. I hope this is not the case with other weblogs or we can find a solution for that on PEARWeb.}