[development] Go PHP 5, Go!

[Peter Wolanin]

Drupal has a number of custom fixes (e.g. function drupal_clone()) to
deal with differences between PHP 4 and PHP 5 - it would be nice to
not have to worry about such things.

-Peter

On 6/6/07, Sean Robertson <seanr at ngpsoftware.com> wrote:
> Are there currently that many PHP4 apps that won't run on PHP5?  I
> thought Drupal already does.  Why can't ISPs upgrade without breaking
> older apps?
>
> I am a huge fan of this idea overall, BTW.  I think migrating apps to
> PHP5 will start forcing ISPs to at least provide the option to upgrade
> since they'll start losing customers if they don't.  At my company, we
> own our own servers so it'd be relatively easy for us to upgrade.
>
>
>
>
> Larry Garfield wrote:
> > This is a follow-up to the PHP 5 thread from a week or two ago.  It looks like
> > some momentum is building.  Ken Rickard, Robert Douglas, and I have been
> > talking with some of the Jooma folks, and have a working draft of the "core
> > statement and justification".  That is, what the goal is and why it is.
> > Joomla's development team is discussing the matter and is leaning yes.  Based
> > on the earlier thread here I am hoping that there isn't much objection to
> > Drupal participating in the "Go PHP5" effort. :-)  So far Joomla is leaning
> > yes, CakePHP is interested, and I had a positive first response from Typo3.
> > Robert Douglas has volunteered himself to setup a web site for it.
> >
> > I'm not sure how Dries wants to handle the question of Drupal's participation
> > (by vote, by consensus, or by fiat).  Dries?
> >
> > Anyway, here's the working statement.  Consider this an official
> > recommendation that Drupal commit to participating in this effort.
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> > PHP 4 has served the web developer community for seven years now, and served
> > it well.  However, it also shows its age.  Most of PHP 4's shortcomings have
> > been addressed by PHP 5, released three years ago, but the transition from
> > PHP 4 to PHP 5 has been slow for a number of reasons.
> >
> > PHP developers cannot leverage PHP 5's full potential without dropping support
> > for PHP 4, but PHP 4 is still installed on a majority of shared web hosts and
> > users would then be forced to switch to a different application.  Web hosts
> > cannot upgrade their servers to PHP 5 without making it impossible for their
> > users to run PHP 4-targeted web apps, and have no incentive to go to the
> > effort of testing and deploying PHP 5 while most web apps are still
> > compatible with PHP 4 and the PHP development team still provides maintenance
> > support for PHP 4.  The PHP development team, of course, can't drop
> > maintenance support for PHP 4 while most web hosts still run PHP 4.
> >
> > It is a dangerous cycle, and one that needs to be broken.  The open source PHP
> > developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward,
> > together.  Therefore, the listed open source PHP projects have all agreed
> > that effective 5 February 2008, any new feature release will have a minimum
> > required PHP version no older than PHP 5.2.0.  It is our believe that this
> > will allow web hosts a reason to upgrade and the PHP development team the
> > ability to retire PHP 4 and focus efforts on PHP 5 and the forthcoming PHP 6,
> > all without penalizing any existing project for being "first out of the
> > gate".
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Notes:
> > - I chose the date because I figure that will be 7-8 months after we
> > officially announce this thing, which I believe should be sufficient time for
> > web hosts.  It also comes out to 5/2/2008 (using European convention), and I
> > just like inside references like that. :-)
> > - This does not preclude any project from moving before the deadline date, or
> > from supporting older versions for however long they wish to.  That's up to
> > each project.
> > - PHP 5.2 is already the most widely installed version of PHP 5, based on the
> > latest published stats.  I know at least two web hosts I work with that
> > either have jumped or are in the process of jumping from PHP 4 straight to
> > PHP 5.2.  By the target date it will have been out for nearly a year and a
> > half.  It also adds a number of new and useful core features (filter_input,
> > json, a stable PDO, etc.).  It's a good version to target.
> >
> > Thoughts?  Comments?  Support?  Rotten tomatoes?
> >
>
> --
> Sean Robertson
> Web Developer
> NGP Software, Inc.
> seanr at ngpsoftware.com
> (202) 686-9330
> http://www.ngpsoftware.com
>
>