A pox on your XAMPP and or houses (both of them?)

I dislike XAMPP incredibly. Every time I get someone asking a question on why-doesn't-pear-work; or I-can't-include-something, it tends to be XAMPP.

I'm sure it's a great idea to minimize the entry level (I've never used it), but unless people new to PHP set up and configure their own instance of php (php.ini is not that hard), they get immediately stuffed; because things are not where they should be by default.

I'm all for making things easier. Look at how easy it is to install python or perl - an MSI, and it just kind of works. You also don't have to think about include_path magic so much.
If PHP could work like that on Windows, hurray - but it doesn't. Not with XAMPP and PEAR.

How do I know - this on #pear

(10:11:35 AM) pc__: "DB Error: not found" this is driving me crazy
... snip ...
(10:14:09 AM) pc__: Unable to include the DB/mysql.php file
... snip ...
(10:18:53 AM) pc__: so, is DB/mysql.php supposed to already exist? or is it part of some additional package that i need to get?
... snip ...
(10:36:41 AM) pc__: mysql.php simply doesnt exist anywhere. i have no DB folder under PEAR, and i already tried to use mysqli, same result.
(10:36:52 AM) pc__: i think its because this is xampp lite
... snip ...
(10:37:07 AM) CloCkWeRX: pear install -f DB
(10:38:07 AM) pc__: im now on windows
(10:41:41 AM) pc__ left the room (quit: Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.83 [Firefox 3.0.3/2008092417]).

Wonderful. XAMPP just turned a developer completely off of PEAR because they made it very simple to install something, then changed around the defaults and other basic expectations, so that it was very hard to install other things - like PEAR::DB, properly.