Merge pull request #18 from async-interop/readme

README

Author: AndrewCarterUK

README.md

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+# Event Loop Interopability
+
+The purpose of this proposal is to provide a common interface for event loop
+implementations. This will allow libraries and components from different
+vendors to operate in an event driven architecture, sharing a common event
+loop.
+
+## Why Bother?
+
+Some programming languages, such as Javascript, have an event loop that is
+native to the execution environment. This allows package vendors to easily
+create asynchronous software that uses this native event loop. Although PHP
+is historically a synchronous programming environment, it is still possible
+to use asynchronous programming techniques. Using these techniques, package
+vendors have created PHP event loop implementations that have seen success.
+
+However, as these event loop implementations are from package vendors, it
+is not yet possible to create event driven software components that are
+independent of the underlying event loop implementation. By creating a
+common interface for an event loop, interoperability of this nature will
+be possible.
+
+## Goals
+
+The functionality exposed by this interface should include the ability to:
+
+- Watch input streams for available data
+- Watch output streams for the ability to perform non-blocking write operations
+- Run single and periodic timers
+- Listen for signals
+- Defer the execution of callables
+
+## Contributors
+
+* [Aaron Piotrowski](https://github.com/trowski)
+* [Andrew Carter](https://github.com/AndrewCarterUK)
+* [Bob Weinand](https://github.com/bwoebi)
+* [Cees-Jan Kiewiet](https://github.com/WyriHaximus)
+* [Christopher Pitt](https://github.com/assertchris)
+* [Niklas Keller](https://github.com/kelunik)
+* [Stephen M. Coakley](https://github.com/coderstephen)