As with most tools that work really well, I know very little about PEAR. I mean, I use it all the time, and I love it for getting all the extensions installed that I need for the work I do. But I’ve never made a PEAR package, or channel, and I’ve been happy to leave all those things in the hands of the smart people who have created what we have today.

However I’m now in a situation where I might need to install PEAR packages with a connection that may or may not be working, and I’m not sure exactly which packages I might need, so I wanted to know whether I could use PEAR as my packaging tool even when I wasn’t able to reach the usual channels. And guess what? I can! Continue reading →