Updated wording on Composer / PEAR stuff.

_posts/04-01-01-Dependency-Management.md

@@ -4,16 +4,14 @@ anchor: dependency_management
 
 # Dependency Management {#dependency_management_title}
 
-There are a ton of PHP libraries, frameworks, and components to choose from. Your project will likely use several of
-them — these are project dependencies. Until recently, PHP did not have a good way to manage these project
-dependencies. Even if you managed them manually, you still had to worry about autoloaders. No more.
+There are a ton of PHP libraries, frameworks, and components to choose from. Your project will likely use 
+several of them — these are project dependencies. Until recently, PHP did not have a good way to manage
+these project dependencies. Even if you managed them manually, you still had to worry about autoloaders.
+That is no longer an issue.
 
-Currently there are two major package management systems for PHP - Composer and PEAR. Which one is right for you? The
-answer is both.
+Currently there are two major package management systems for PHP - [Composer] and [PEAR]. Composer is
+the main package manager to use for PHP, however for a long time PEAR used to fill that role. Knowing what
+PEAR is will be a good idea as you may still find references to it, even if you never use it.
 
-* Use **Composer** when managing dependencies for a single project.
-* Use **PEAR** when managing dependencies for PHP as a whole on your system.
-
-In general, Composer packages will be available only in the projects that you explicitly specify whereas a PEAR package
-would be available to all of your PHP projects. While PEAR might sound like the easier approach at first glance, there
-are advantages to using a project-by-project approach to your dependencies.
+[Composer]: /#composer_and_packagist
+[PEAR]: /#pear

_posts/04-02-01-Composer-and-Packagist.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ with a few simple commands, Composer will automatically download your project's
 you.
 
 There are already a lot of PHP libraries that are compatible with Composer, ready to be used in your project. These
-"packages" are listed on [Packagist][1], the official repository for Composer-compatible PHP libraries.
+"packages" are listed on [Packagist], the official repository for Composer-compatible PHP libraries.
 
 ### How to Install Composer
 
@@ -27,14 +27,16 @@ dependencies.
 code online first to confirm it is safe.
 
 #### Installing on Windows
-For Windows users the easiest way to get up and running is to use the [ComposerSetup][6] installer, which performs a
-global install and sets up your `$PATH` so that you can just call `composer` from any directory in your command line.
+
+For Windows users the easiest way to get up and running is to use the [ComposerSetup] installer, which
+performs a global install and sets up your `$PATH` so that you can just call `composer` from any
+directory in your command line.
 
 ### How to Install Composer (manually)
 
-Manually installing Composer is an advanced technique; however, there are various reasons why a developer might prefer
-this method vs. using the interactive installation routine. The interactive installation checks your PHP installation
-to ensure that:
+Manually installing Composer is an advanced technique; however, there are various reasons why a 
+developer might prefer this method vs. using the interactive installation routine. The interactive
+installation checks your PHP installation to ensure that:
 
 - a sufficient version of PHP is being used
 - `.phar` files can be executed correctly
@@ -42,19 +44,19 @@ to ensure that:
 - certain problematic extensions are not loaded
 - certain `php.ini` settings are set
 
-Since a manual installation performs none of these checks, you have to decide whether the trade-off is worth it for
-you. As such, below is how to obtain Composer manually:
+Since a manual installation performs none of these checks, you have to decide whether the trade-off is 
+worth it for you. As such, below is how to obtain Composer manually:
 
 {% highlight console %}
 curl -s https://getcomposer.org/composer.phar -o $HOME/local/bin/composer
 chmod +x $HOME/local/bin/composer
 {% endhighlight %}
 
-The path `$HOME/local/bin` (or a directory of your choice) should be in your `$PATH` environment variable. This will
-result in a `composer` command being available.
+The path `$HOME/local/bin` (or a directory of your choice) should be in your `$PATH` environment 
+variable. This will result in a `composer` command being available.
 
-When you come across documentation that states to run Composer as `php composer.phar install`, you can substitute that
-with:
+When you come across documentation that states to run Composer as `php composer.phar install`, you can
+substitute that with:
 
 {% highlight console %}
 composer install
@@ -64,25 +66,26 @@ This section will assume you have installed composer globally.
 
 ### How to Define and Install Dependencies
 
-Composer keeps track of your project's dependencies in a file called `composer.json`. You can manage it by hand if you
-like, or use Composer itself. The `composer require` command adds a project dependency and if you don't have a
-`composer.json` file, one will be created. Here's an example that adds [Twig][2] as a dependency of your project.
+Composer keeps track of your project's dependencies in a file called `composer.json`. You can manage it
+by hand if you like, or use Composer itself. The `composer require` command adds a project dependency 
+and if you don't have a `composer.json` file, one will be created. Here's an example that adds [Twig]
+as a dependency of your project.
 
 {% highlight console %}
 composer require twig/twig:~1.8
 {% endhighlight %}
 
-Alternatively the `composer init` command will guide you through creating a full `composer.json` file for your project.
-Either way, once you've created your `composer.json` file you can tell Composer to download and install your
-dependencies into the `vendor/` directory. This also applies to projects you've downloaded that already provide a
-`composer.json` file:
+Alternatively the `composer init` command will guide you through creating a full `composer.json` file
+for your project. Either way, once you've created your `composer.json` file you can tell Composer to
+download and install your dependencies into the `vendor/` directory. This also applies to projects 
+you've downloaded that already provide a `composer.json` file:
 
 {% highlight console %}
 composer install
 {% endhighlight %}
 
-Next, add this line to your application's primary PHP file; this will tell PHP to use Composer's autoloader for your
-project dependencies.
+Next, add this line to your application's primary PHP file; this will tell PHP to use Composer's 
+autoloader for your project dependencies.
 
 {% highlight php %}
 <?php
@@ -93,32 +96,47 @@ Now you can use your project dependencies, and they'll be autoloaded on demand.
 
 ### Updating your dependencies
 
-Composer creates a file called `composer.lock` which stores the exact version of each package it downloaded when you
-first ran `php composer.phar install`. If you share your project with other coders and the `composer.lock` file is
-part of your distribution, when they run `php composer.phar install` they'll get the same versions as you. To update
-your dependencies, run `php composer.phar update`.
+Composer creates a file called `composer.lock` which stores the exact version of each package it
+downloaded when you
+first ran `composer install`. If you share your project with other coders and the `composer.lock` file
+is part of your distribution, when they run `composer install` they'll get the same versions as you. 
+To update your dependencies, run `composer update`.
 
-This is most useful when you define your version requirements flexibly. For instance a version requirement of `~1.8`
-means "anything newer than `1.8.0`, but less than `2.0.x-dev`". You can also use the `*` wildcard as in `1.8.*`. Now
-Composer's `php composer.phar update` command will upgrade all your dependencies to the newest version that fits the
-restrictions you define.
+This is most useful when you define your version requirements flexibly. For instance a version 
+requirement of `~1.8` means "anything newer than `1.8.0`, but less than `2.0.x-dev`". You can also use 
+the `*` wildcard as in `1.8.*`. Now Composer's `composer update` command will upgrade all your
+dependencies to the newest version that fits the restrictions you define.
 
 ### Update Notifications
 
-To receive notifications about new version releases you can sign up for [VersionEye][3], a web service that can monitor
-your GitHub and BitBucket accounts for `composer.json` files and send emails with new package releases.
+To receive notifications about new version releases you can sign up for [VersionEye], a web service
+that can monitor your GitHub and BitBucket accounts for `composer.json` files and send emails with new
+package releases.
 
 ### Checking your dependencies for security issues
 
-The [Security Advisories Checker][4] is a web service and a command-line tool, both will examine your `composer.lock`
+The [Security Advisories Checker] is a web service and a command-line tool, both will examine your `composer.lock`
 file and tell you if you need to update any of your dependencies.
 
-* [Learn about Composer][5]
+### Handling global dependencies with Composer
 
+Composer can also handle global dependencies and their binaries. Usage is straight-forward, all you need
+to do is prefix your command with `global`. If per example you wanted to install PHPUnit and have it 
+available globally, you'd run the following command:
 
-[1]: http://packagist.org/
-[2]: http://twig.sensiolabs.org
-[3]: https://www.versioneye.com/
-[4]: https://security.sensiolabs.org/
-[5]: http://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md
-[6]: https://getcomposer.org/Composer-Setup.exe
+{% highlight console %}
+composer global require phpunit/phpunit
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+This will create a `~/.composer` folder where your global dependencies reside. To have the installed
+packages' binaries available everywhere, you'd then add the `~/.composer/vendor/bin` folder to your 
+`$PATH` variable.
+
+* [Learn about Composer]
+
+[Packagist]: http://packagist.org/
+[Twig]: http://twig.sensiolabs.org
+[VersionEye]: https://www.versioneye.com/
+[Security Advisories Checker]: https://security.sensiolabs.org/
+[Learn about Composer]: http://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md
+[ComposerSetup]: https://getcomposer.org/Composer-Setup.exe

_posts/04-03-01-PEAR.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ anchor:  pear
 
 ## PEAR {#pear_title}
 
-Another veteran package manager that many PHP developers enjoy is [PEAR][1]. It behaves much the same way as Composer,
+A veteran package manager that some PHP developers enjoy is [PEAR][1]. It behaves similarly to Composer,
 but has some notable differences.
 
 PEAR requires each package to have a specific structure, which means that the author of the package must prepare it for
@@ -17,11 +17,11 @@ version conflicts between two projects arise.
 
 ### How to install PEAR
 
-You can install PEAR by downloading the phar installer and executing it. The PEAR documentation has detailed
-[install instructions][2] for every operating system.
+You can install PEAR by downloading the `.phar` installer and executing it. The PEAR documentation has 
+detailed [install instructions][2] for every operating system.
 
-If you are using Linux, you can also have a look at your distribution package manager. Debian and Ubuntu, for example,
-have an apt ``php-pear`` package.
+If you are using Linux, you can also have a look at your distribution package manager. Debian and Ubuntu, 
+for example, have an apt `php-pear` package.
 
 ### How to install a package
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ handle your PEAR dependencies. This example will install code from `pear2.php.ne
 }
 {% endhighlight %}
 
-The first section `"repositories"` will be used to let Composer know it should "initialise" (or "discover" in PEAR
+The first section `"repositories"` will be used to let Composer know it should "initialize" (or "discover" in PEAR
 terminology) the pear repo. Then the require section will prefix the package name like this:
 
 > pear-channel/Package