I will point out that having the ability to have the lock is a great convenience when you have a robust external dependency persistence strategy as it keeps track of you the information useful for tracking that (the origins) and updating it but if you don't then it's neither here not there. It's not useful when it's forced down your throat as a mandatory option to have it polluting your source trees. It's a very common thing to find in legacy codebases where people have made lots of changes to composer.json which haven't really been applied and are broken when people try to use composer. No composer.lock, no desync problem.
I will point out that having the ability to have the lock is a great convenience when you have that but it's not when it's forced down your throat as a mandatory option to have it polluting your source trees.
I will point out that having the ability to have the lock is a great convenience when you have a robust external dependency persistence strategy as it keeps track of you the information useful for tracking that (the origins) and updating it but if you don't then it's neither here not there. It's not useful when it's forced down your throat as a mandatory option to have it polluting your source trees. It's a very common thing to find in legacy codebases where people have made lots of changes to composer.json which haven't really been applied and are broken when people try to use composer. No composer.lock, no desync problem.
On the other hand that significantly increases the burden of version management, where you'd almost certainly want multiple versions of every library as dependencies will be strictly locked. If every library is likely to have a slightly different version then you need some multiple library version support and you can also quickly see the size of dependencies needed flair out, hence the advise to keep it on the leaf.
Taking that on board, I really don't find lock files to be useful either libraries or your own workdirs. It's only use for me is in my build/testing platform which persists any externally acquired assets only updating them when requested, providing repeatable builds for testing, build and deploy. While that can be kept in VCS it's normally not always kept with the source tree, the build trees will either be elsewhere in the VCS structure or managed by another system somewhere else. If it's stored in a VCS it's debatable whether or not to keep it in the same repo as source trees because otherwise every pull can bring in a mass of build assets. I quite like having things all in a well arranged repo with the exception of production/sensitive credentials and bloat.
SVN can do it better than git as it doesn't force you to acquire the entire repo (though I suspect that's not actually strictly needed for git either but support for that is limited and it's not commonly used). Simple build repos are usually just an overlay branch you merge/export the build tree into. Some people combine exernal resources in their source tree or separate further, external, build and source trees. It usually serversserves two purposes, build caching and repeatable builds but sometimes keeping it separate on at least some level also permits fresh/blank builds and multiple builds easily.
There are a number of strategies for this and none of them particularly work well with persisting local lock files tothe sources list unless you're keeping external source treesin your source tree.
They also have things like hashes in of the file, how do that merge when two people update packages? That alone should make you think maybe this is misconstrued.
The arguments people are putting forward for lock files are cases where they've taken a very specific and restrictive view of the problem. Want repeatable builds and consistent builds? Include the vendor folder in VCS. Then you also speed up fetching assets as well as not having to depend on potentially broken external resources during build. None of the build and deploy pipelines I create require external access unless absolutely necessary. If you do have to update an external resource it's once and only once. What composer is trying to achieve makes sense for a distributed system except as mentionmentioned before it makes no sense because it would end up with library dependency hell for library updates with common clashes and updates being as slow as the slowest to update package.
In composer.json you put the packages you require and theretheir versions. You can lock the versions there. However those packages also have dependencies with dynamic versions that wont be locked by composer.json (though I don't see why your couldn't also put them there yourself if you do want them to be version locked) so someone else running composer install gets something different without the lock. You might not care a great deal about that or you might care, it depends. Should you care? Probably at least a little, enough to ensure you're aware of it in any situation and potential impact, but it might not be a problem either if you always have the time to just DRY run first and fix anything that got updated.
The hassle composer is trying to avoid sometimes just isn't there and the hassle having composer lock files can make is significant. They have absolutely no right to tell users what they should or shouldn't do regarding build versus source assets (whether to join of separate in VCS) as that's none of their business, they're not the boss of you or me. "Composer says" isn't an authority, they're not your superior officer nor do they give anyone any superiority on this subject. Only you know your real situation and what's best for that. However, they might advise a default course of action for users that don't understand how things work in which case you might want to follow that but personally I don't think that's a real substitute for knowing how things work and being able to properly workout your requirements. Ultimately, their answer to that question is a best guess. The people who make composer do not know where you should keep your composer.lock nor should they. Their only responsibility is to tell you what it is and what it does. Outside of that you need to decide what's best for you.
ThisKeeping the lock file in is compounded by thatproblematic for usability because composer is very secretive about whether it uses lock or jsonJSON and doesn't always to well to use both together. If you run install it only uses the lock file it would appear so if you add something to composer.json then it wont be installed because it's not in your lock. It's not intuitive at all what operations really do and what they're doing in regards to the json/lock file and sometimes don't appear to even make sense (help says install takes a package name but on trying to use it it says no).
To update the lock or basically apply changes from the json you have to use update and you might not want to update everything. The lock takes precedence for choosing what should be installed. If there's a lock file, it's what's used. You can restrict update somewhat but the system is still just a mess.
On the other hand that significantly increases the burden of version management, where you'd almost certainly want multiple versions of every library as dependencies will be strictly locked.
Taking that on board, I really don't find lock files to be useful either libraries or your own workdirs. It's only use for me is in my build/testing platform which persists any externally acquired assets only updating them when requested, providing repeatable builds for testing, build and deploy. While that can be kept in VCS it's normally not kept with the source tree, the build trees will either be elsewhere in the VCS structure or managed by another system somewhere else. If it's stored in VCS it's debatable whether or not to keep it in the same repo as source trees because otherwise every pull can bring in a mass of build assets. I quite like having things all in a well arranged repo with the exception of production/sensitive credentials and bloat. SVN can do it better than git as it doesn't force you to acquire the entire repo (though I suspect that's not actually strictly needed for git either). Simple build repos are usually just an overlay branch you merge/export the build tree into. It usually servers two purposes, build caching and repeatable builds but keeping it separate also permits fresh/blank builds and multiple builds easily.
There are a number of strategies for this and none of them particularly work well with persisting local lock files to source trees. They also have things like hashes in of the file, how do that merge when two people update packages? That alone should make you think maybe this is misconstrued.
The arguments people are putting forward for lock files are cases where they've taken a very specific and restrictive view of the problem. Want repeatable builds and consistent builds? Include the vendor folder in VCS. Then you also speed up fetching assets as well as not having to depend on potentially broken external resources during build. None of the build and deploy pipelines I create require external access unless absolutely necessary. If you do have to update an external resource it's once and only once. What composer is trying to achieve makes sense for a distributed system except as mention before it makes no sense because it would end up with library dependency hell for library updates with common clashes and updates being as slow as the slowest to update package.
In composer.json you put the packages you require and there versions. You can lock the versions there. However those packages also have dependencies with dynamic versions that wont be locked by composer.json (though I don't see why your couldn't also put them there yourself if you do want them to be version locked) so someone else running composer install gets something different without the lock. You might not care a great deal about that or you might care, it depends. Should you care? Probably at least a little, enough to ensure you're aware of it in any situation and potential impact, but it might not be a problem either if you always have the time to just DRY run first and fix anything that got updated.
The hassle composer is trying to avoid sometimes just isn't there and the hassle having composer lock files can make is significant. They have absolutely no right to tell users what they should or shouldn't do regarding build versus source assets (whether to join of separate in VCS) as that's none of their business, they're not the boss of you or me. However, they might advise a default course of action for users that don't understand how things work in which case you might want to follow that but personally I don't think that's a real substitute for knowing how things work and being able to properly workout your requirements.
This is compounded by that composer is very secretive about whether it uses lock or json and doesn't always to well to use both together. If you run install it only uses the lock file it would appear so if you add something to composer.json then it wont be installed because it's not in your lock.
To update the lock you have to use update and you might not want to update everything. You can restrict update somewhat but the system is still just a mess.
On the other hand that significantly increases the burden of version management, where you'd almost certainly want multiple versions of every library as dependencies will be strictly locked. If every library is likely to have a slightly different version then you need some multiple library version support and you can also quickly see the size of dependencies needed flair out, hence the advise to keep it on the leaf.
Taking that on board, I really don't find lock files to be useful either libraries or your own workdirs. It's only use for me is in my build/testing platform which persists any externally acquired assets only updating them when requested, providing repeatable builds for testing, build and deploy. While that can be kept in VCS it's not always kept with the source tree, the build trees will either be elsewhere in the VCS structure or managed by another system somewhere else. If it's stored in a VCS it's debatable whether or not to keep it in the same repo as source trees because otherwise every pull can bring in a mass of build assets. I quite like having things all in a well arranged repo with the exception of production/sensitive credentials and bloat.
SVN can do it better than git as it doesn't force you to acquire the entire repo (though I suspect that's not actually strictly needed for git either but support for that is limited and it's not commonly used). Simple build repos are usually just an overlay branch you merge/export the build tree into. Some people combine exernal resources in their source tree or separate further, external, build and source trees. It usually serves two purposes, build caching and repeatable builds but sometimes keeping it separate on at least some level also permits fresh/blank builds and multiple builds easily.
There are a number of strategies for this and none of them particularly work well with persisting the sources list unless you're keeping external source in your source tree.
They also have things like hashes in of the file, how do that merge when two people update packages? That alone should make you think maybe this is misconstrued.
The arguments people are putting forward for lock files are cases where they've taken a very specific and restrictive view of the problem. Want repeatable builds and consistent builds? Include the vendor folder in VCS. Then you also speed up fetching assets as well as not having to depend on potentially broken external resources during build. None of the build and deploy pipelines I create require external access unless absolutely necessary. If you do have to update an external resource it's once and only once. What composer is trying to achieve makes sense for a distributed system except as mentioned before it makes no sense because it would end up with library dependency hell for library updates with common clashes and updates being as slow as the slowest to update package.
In composer.json you put the packages you require and their versions. You can lock the versions there. However those packages also have dependencies with dynamic versions that wont be locked by composer.json (though I don't see why your couldn't also put them there yourself if you do want them to be version locked) so someone else running composer install gets something different without the lock. You might not care a great deal about that or you might care, it depends. Should you care? Probably at least a little, enough to ensure you're aware of it in any situation and potential impact, but it might not be a problem either if you always have the time to just DRY run first and fix anything that got updated.
The hassle composer is trying to avoid sometimes just isn't there and the hassle having composer lock files can make is significant. They have absolutely no right to tell users what they should or shouldn't do regarding build versus source assets (whether to join of separate in VCS) as that's none of their business, they're not the boss of you or me. "Composer says" isn't an authority, they're not your superior officer nor do they give anyone any superiority on this subject. Only you know your real situation and what's best for that. However, they might advise a default course of action for users that don't understand how things work in which case you might want to follow that but personally I don't think that's a real substitute for knowing how things work and being able to properly workout your requirements. Ultimately, their answer to that question is a best guess. The people who make composer do not know where you should keep your composer.lock nor should they. Their only responsibility is to tell you what it is and what it does. Outside of that you need to decide what's best for you.
Keeping the lock file in is problematic for usability because composer is very secretive about whether it uses lock or JSON and doesn't always to well to use both together. If you run install it only uses the lock file it would appear so if you add something to composer.json then it wont be installed because it's not in your lock. It's not intuitive at all what operations really do and what they're doing in regards to the json/lock file and sometimes don't appear to even make sense (help says install takes a package name but on trying to use it it says no).
To update the lock or basically apply changes from the json you have to use update and you might not want to update everything. The lock takes precedence for choosing what should be installed. If there's a lock file, it's what's used. You can restrict update somewhat but the system is still just a mess.
The arguments people are putting forward for lock files are cases where they've taken a very specific and restrictive view of the problem. Want repeatable builds and consistent builds? Include the vendor folder in VCS. Then you also speed up fetching assets as well as not having to depend on potentially broken external resources during build. None of the build and deploy pipelines I create require external access unless absolutely necessary. If you do have to update an external resource it's once and only once. What composer is trying to achieve makes sense for a distributed system except as mention before it makes no sense because it would end up with library dependency hell for library updates with common clashes and updates being as slow as the slowest to update package.
Additionally I update ferociously. Every time I develop I update and test everything. There's a very very tiny window for significant version drift to sneak in. Realistically as well, when semantic versioning is upheld, which is tends to be for composer, you're not suppose to have that many compatibility issues or breakages.
In composer.json you put the packages you require and there versions. You can lock the versions there. However those packages also have dependencies with dynamic versions that wont be locked by composer.json (though I don't see why your couldn't also put them there yourself if you do want them to be version locked) so someone else running composer install gets something different without the lock. You might not care a great deal about that or you might care, it depends. Should you care? Probably at least a little, enough to ensure you're aware of it in any situation and potential impact, but it might not be a problem either if you always have the time to just DRY run first and fix anything that got updated.
In composer.json you put the packages you require and there versions. You can lock the versions there. However those packages also have dependencies with dynamic versions that wont be locked by composer.json (though I don't see why your couldn't also put them there yourself if you do want them to be version locked) so someone else running composer install gets something different without the lock. You might not care a great deal about that or you might care, it depends. Should you care? Probably at least a little, enough to ensure you're aware of it in any situation and potential impact, but it might not be a problem either if you always have the time to just DRY run first and fix anything that got updated.
The arguments people are putting forward for lock files are cases where they've taken a very specific and restrictive view of the problem. Want repeatable builds and consistent builds? Include the vendor folder in VCS. Then you also speed up fetching assets as well as not having to depend on potentially broken external resources during build. None of the build and deploy pipelines I create require external access unless absolutely necessary. If you do have to update an external resource it's once and only once. What composer is trying to achieve makes sense for a distributed system except as mention before it makes no sense because it would end up with library dependency hell for library updates with common clashes and updates being as slow as the slowest to update package.
Additionally I update ferociously. Every time I develop I update and test everything. There's a very very tiny window for significant version drift to sneak in. Realistically as well, when semantic versioning is upheld, which is tends to be for composer, you're not suppose to have that many compatibility issues or breakages.
In composer.json you put the packages you require and there versions. You can lock the versions there. However those packages also have dependencies with dynamic versions that wont be locked by composer.json (though I don't see why your couldn't also put them there yourself if you do want them to be version locked) so someone else running composer install gets something different without the lock. You might not care a great deal about that or you might care, it depends. Should you care? Probably at least a little, enough to ensure you're aware of it in any situation and potential impact, but it might not be a problem either if you always have the time to just DRY run first and fix anything that got updated.