[drupal-devel] I do not care about PHP 5

[Gerhard Killesreiter]

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005, Gabor Hojtsy wrote:

> > By then, PHP6 will be there, incompatbile again, and I'd need to fix
> > anyways. And who knows, it's possible that 5.0.6 will break stuff again
> > and I need to fix my code again. No, thanks, I code for PHP4.
>
> Coding for PHP 4 does not help, as similar fixes were intorduced in PHP
> 4.4.0 too. Before ranting against PHP 5 support, you should really go
> after what was changed, and why it was neccessery:
>
>   http://tinyurl.com/bo7pr
>
> Read the anchored comment, not the blogpost! What this says to us:
>
>   - PHP 4.4.0 / PHP 5.0.5 fix several crash bugs (people will upgrade
>   to these, and they do it rightly)
>
>   - unfortunately some of these bugs were caused because PHP was
>   forgiving in handling references, and this resulted in problems,
>   which can only be fixed by making PHP stricter, breaking BC

Thanks for explaining this.

> Read what Derick things about this change being good for making PHP
> applications better:

I find it kind of amusing to observe a script language trying to become
a real programing language. :p

>   http://derickrethans.nl/fanmail.php
>
> Sure, if you are not going on this route, you can do so. But be warned
> that quite some Drupal developers are or at least try to be on the
> bleeding edge with actual software (to get bug fixes, use new features),
> so actually these core developers will not be able to use your code. Eg.
> last time it was asked, drupaldevs.org ran on PHP 5, JonBob, Killes and
> others having development spaces there.

Drupaldevs is down for several months now. :p

> Kalid B suggested that I should try to escalate this to the developers.
> There is no need to escalate this, as you will see from Derick's
> fanmail, this was escalated enough. Those who don't like this situation
> should either improve their code or submit a patch to the Zend Engine
> itself, this is the situation. I don't think it is a problem, if Drupal
> comes out of this as a better written application. I doubt Rasmus will
> tell you otherwise at EurOSCON (and I doubt he is using Drupal on PHP 4).

Yep, the situation is pretty much settled. There is no doubt that the
more rigid handling of what is allowed and what not will improve code.
I have been submitting patches for fixing notices in the past and think
that more patches like this should be comitted. Large mega patches are
unlikely to make it, though, as experience has shown.

Cheers,
	Gerhard