I don't think you can say outsiders have nothing to contribute to php's development. The end user of a program doesn't need to know anything about the internals in order to have an opinion on what sort of user interface it should present or what it should do.

On the subject of tests.. has anyone thought about using SimpleTest rather than phpt? I'd find that much easier to read and to write:

--TEST--
Check for exif_read_data, unusual IFD start
--SKIPIF--
< ?php
if (!extension_loaded('exif')) print 'skip exif extension not available';
?>
--FILE--
< ?php
/ Do not change this test it is a REATME.TESTING example.
test5.jpg is a 1*1 image that contains an Exif section with ifd = 00000009h
*/
$image = exif_read_data('./ext/exif/tests/test5.jpg','',true,false);
var_dump($image['IFD0']);
? >
--EXPECT--
array(2) {
["ImageDescription"]=>
string(11) "Ifd00000009"
["DateTime"]=>
string(19) "2002:10:18 20:06:00"
}


class WhenReadingExifData extends UnitTestCase {

function skip() {
$this->skipIf(
!extension_loaded('exif'),
'exif extension not available');
}
function testUnusualIFDStart() {
$expected = array{
"ImageDescription"=>"Ifd00000009"
"DateTime"=>"2002:10:18 20:06:00");

$image = exif_read_data(
'./ext/exif/tests/test5.jpg',
'',
true,
false);

$this->assertIdentical(
$image['IFD0'],
$expected);
}
}

> Sure, you may have an opinion, but don't seriously expect anybody to take it into account.

But I do.

Let me give you an example. There's something quite important missing from php exceptions. If, as you say, you have nothing to learn from outsiders you'll know about this already. If not, I've got a useful idea to contribute even though I've never written a line of code for php.

So: what am I talking about?