Discussion: native (C) alternative for polyfills — feedback welcome

[arshidkv12]

Hi

I’m exploring a native (C/extension-based) alternative to some userland polyfills,
mainly to study performance, memory usage, and OPcache behavior.

Not proposing a replacement for this project — just looking for maintainer
feedback on:

• whether the benchmarks make sense
• known performance-sensitive areas
• any compatibility concerns with native implementations

Happy to share findings if useful. Thanks!

Project: https://github.com/mailmug/corefill

[keradus]

in userland, if i need to make customized image to install custom native extension, i rather use default image of newer PHP itself - thus no need to polyfill.
if i cannot upgrade the php image, those few nanoseconds of potential optimization of polyfill not the biggest concern

[arshidkv12]

That’s a valid point

I’m mainly looking for cases where a small C extension solves a real problem that userland or upgrades don’t.

Happy to hear ideas where a C extension would actually help.

[stof]

Those polyfills are only about solving a problem that is 100% solved by an upgrade of PHP (by design of being polyfills for new PHP versions)