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cleaned up intro page a bit

Rob Bast 9 years ago
parent
commit
4ddd5aa37f
2 changed files with 61 additions and 92 deletions
  1. 53 84
      doc/00-intro.md
  2. 8 8
      doc/06-config.md

+ 53 - 84
doc/00-intro.md

@@ -1,54 +1,41 @@
 # Introduction
 
 Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare
-the dependent libraries your project needs and it will install them in your
-project for you.
+the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them
+for you.
 
 ## Dependency management
 
-Composer is not a package manager. Yes, it deals with "packages" or libraries, but
-it manages them on a per-project basis, installing them in a directory (e.g. `vendor`)
-inside your project. By default it will never install anything globally. Thus,
-it is a dependency manager.
+Composer is **not** a package manager in the same sense as Yum or Apt are. Yes,
+it deals with "packages" or libraries, but it manages them on a per-project
+basis, installing them in a directory (e.g. `vendor`) inside your project. By
+default it will never install anything globally. Thus, it is a dependency
+manager.
 
-This idea is not new and Composer is strongly inspired by node's [npm](https://npmjs.org/)
-and ruby's [bundler](http://bundler.io/). But there has not been such a tool
-for PHP.
+This idea is not new and Composer is strongly inspired by node's
+[npm](https://npmjs.org/) and ruby's [bundler](http://bundler.io/).
 
-The problem that Composer solves is this:
+Suppose:
 
 a) You have a project that depends on a number of libraries.
 
 b) Some of those libraries depend on other libraries.
 
-c) You declare the things you depend on.
+Composer:
 
-d) Composer finds out which versions of which packages need to be installed, and
-   installs them (meaning it downloads them into your project).
-
-## Declaring dependencies
-
-Let's say you are creating a project, and you need a library that does logging.
-You decide to use [monolog](https://github.com/Seldaek/monolog). In order to
-add it to your project, all you need to do is create a `composer.json` file
-which describes the project's dependencies.
+c) Enables you to declare the libraries you depend on.
 
-```json
-{
-    "require": {
-        "monolog/monolog": "1.2.*"
-    }
-}
-```
+d) Finds out which versions of which packages can and need to be installed, and
+   installs them (meaning it downloads them into your project).
 
-We are simply stating that our project requires some `monolog/monolog` package,
-any version beginning with `1.2`.
+See the [Basic usage](01-basic-usage.md) chapter for more details on declaring
+dependencies.
 
 ## System Requirements
 
 Composer requires PHP 5.3.2+ to run. A few sensitive php settings and compile
-flags are also required, but when using the installer you will be warned about any
-incompatibilities.
+flags are also required, but when using the installer you will be warned about
+any incompatibilities.
 
 To install packages from sources instead of simple zip archives, you will need
 git, svn or hg depending on how the package is version-controlled.
@@ -79,37 +66,48 @@ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
 php -r "readfile('https://getcomposer.org/installer');" | php
 ```
 
-The installer will just check a few PHP settings and then download `composer.phar`
-to your working directory. This file is the Composer binary. It is a PHAR (PHP
-archive), which is an archive format for PHP which can be run on the command
-line, amongst other things.
+The installer will just check a few PHP settings and then download
+`composer.phar` to your working directory. This file is the Composer binary. It
+is a PHAR (PHP archive), which is an archive format for PHP which can be run on
+the command line, amongst other things.
 
 You can install Composer to a specific directory by using the `--install-dir`
-option and providing a target directory (it can be an absolute or relative path):
+option and providing a target directory (it can be an absolute or relative
+path):
 
 ```sh
 curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=bin
 ```
 
+Now just run `php composer.phar` in order to run Composer.
+
 #### Globally
 
-You can place this file anywhere you wish. If you put it in your `PATH`,
-you can access it globally. On unixy systems you can even make it
-executable and invoke it without `php`.
+You can place the Composer PHAR anywhere you wish. If you put it in a directory
+that is part of your `PATH`, you can access it globally. On unixy systems you
+can even make it executable and invoke it without directly using the `php`
+interpreter.
 
-You can run these commands to easily access `composer` from anywhere on your system:
+Run these commands to globally install `composer` on your system:
 
 ```sh
 curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
 mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
+chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/composer
 ```
 
-> **Note:** If the above fails due to permissions, run the `mv` line
+> **Note:** If the above fails due to permissions, run the `mv` and `chmod` line
 > again with sudo.
 
-> **Note:** In OSX Yosemite the `/usr` directory does not exist by default. If you receive the error "/usr/local/bin/composer: No such file or directory" then you must create `/usr/local/bin/` manually before proceeding.
+> **Note:** On some versions of OSX the `/usr` directory does not exist by
+> default. If you receive the error "/usr/local/bin/composer: No such file or
+> directory" then you must create the directory manually before proceeding:
+> `mkdir -p /usr/local/bin`.
 
-Then, just run `composer` in order to run Composer instead of `php composer.phar`.
+> **Note:** For information on changing your PATH, please read the
+> [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(variable)) and/or use Google.
+
+Now just run `composer` in order to run Composer instead of `php composer.phar`.
 
 ## Installation - Windows
 
@@ -117,24 +115,26 @@ Then, just run `composer` in order to run Composer instead of `php composer.phar
 
 This is the easiest way to get Composer set up on your machine.
 
-Download and run [Composer-Setup.exe](https://getcomposer.org/Composer-Setup.exe),
-it will install the latest Composer version and set up your PATH so that you can
-just call `composer` from any directory in your command line.
+Download and run
+[Composer-Setup.exe](https://getcomposer.org/Composer-Setup.exe). It will
+install the latest Composer version and set up your PATH so that you can just
+call `composer` from any directory in your command line.
 
-> **Note:** Close your current terminal. Test usage with a new terminal:
-> That is important since the PATH only gets loaded when the terminal starts.
+> **Note:** Close your current terminal. Test usage with a new terminal: This is
+> important since the PATH only gets loaded when the terminal starts.
 
 ### Manual Installation
 
 Change to a directory on your `PATH` and run the install snippet to download
-composer.phar:
+`composer.phar`:
 
 ```sh
 C:\Users\username>cd C:\bin
 C:\bin>php -r "readfile('https://getcomposer.org/installer');" | php
 ```
 
-> **Note:** If the above fails due to readfile, use the `http` url or enable php_openssl.dll in php.ini
+> **Note:** If the above fails due to readfile, use the `http` url or enable
+> php_openssl.dll in php.ini
 
 Create a new `composer.bat` file alongside `composer.phar`:
 
@@ -153,38 +153,7 @@ Composer version 27d8904
 
 ## Using Composer
 
-We will now use Composer to install the dependencies of the project. If you
-don't have a `composer.json` file in the current directory please skip to the
-[Basic Usage](01-basic-usage.md) chapter.
-
-To resolve and download dependencies, run the `install` command:
-
-```sh
-php composer.phar install
-```
-
-If you did a global install and do not have the phar in that directory
-run this instead:
-
-```sh
-composer install
-```
-
-Following the [example above](#declaring-dependencies), this will download
-monolog into the `vendor/monolog/monolog` directory.
-
-## Autoloading
-
-Besides downloading the library, Composer also prepares an autoload file that's
-capable of autoloading all of the classes in any of the libraries that it
-downloads. To use it, just add the following line to your code's bootstrap
-process:
-
-```php
-require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
-```
-
-Woah! Now start using monolog! To keep learning more about Composer, keep
-reading the "Basic Usage" chapter.
+Now that you've installed Composer, you are ready to use it! Head on over to the
+next chapter for a short and simple demonstration.
 
-[Basic Usage](01-basic-usage.md) →
+[Basic usage](01-basic-usage.md) →

+ 8 - 8
doc/06-config.md

@@ -46,6 +46,11 @@ A list of domain names and username/passwords to authenticate against them. For
 example using `{"example.org": {"username": "alice", "password": "foo"}` as the
 value of this option will let Composer authenticate against example.org.
 
+> **Note:** Authentication-related config options like `http-basic` and
+> `github-oauth` can also be specified inside a `auth.json` file that goes
+> besides your `composer.json`. That way you can gitignore it and every
+> developer can place their own credentials in there.
+
 ## platform
 
 Lets you fake platform packages (PHP and extensions) so that you can emulate a
@@ -99,7 +104,7 @@ first until the cache fits.
 
 ## prepend-autoloader
 
-Defaults to `true`. If false, the Composer autoloader will not be prepended to
+Defaults to `true`. If `false`, the Composer autoloader will not be prepended to
 existing autoloaders. This is sometimes required to fix interoperability issues
 with other autoloaders.
 
@@ -110,7 +115,7 @@ autoloader. When null a random one will be generated.
 
 ## optimize-autoloader
 
-Defaults to `false`. Always optimize when dumping the autoloader.
+Defaults to `false`. If `true`, always optimize when dumping the autoloader.
 
 ## classmap-authoritative
 
@@ -125,7 +130,7 @@ used for GitHub Enterprise setups.
 
 ## github-expose-hostname
 
-Defaults to `true`. If set to `false`, the OAuth tokens created to access the
+Defaults to `true`. If `false`, the OAuth tokens created to access the
 github API will have a date instead of the machine hostname.
 
 ## notify-on-install
@@ -163,9 +168,4 @@ Example:
 }
 ```
 
-> **Note:** Authentication-related config options like `http-basic` and
-> `github-oauth` can also be specified inside a `auth.json` file that goes
-> besides your `composer.json`. That way you can gitignore it and every
-> developer can place their own credentials in there.
-
 ← [Repositories](05-repositories.md)  |  [Community](07-community.md) →