The debut of PEAR 1.4.0 is very exciting. This chapter documents all of the differences
between PEAR 1.3.x and the new features introduced in PEAR 1.4.
The most significant change in PEAR 1.4 is the addition of
channels, a simple and
effective method of distributing application development. This change has
driven most of the other changes to PEAR, and in fact full application support
is a major goal of this release.
In addition to channels, support for customization of the install process has been
seriously enhanced with the addition of three essential features for application
development:
