[development] Go PHP 5, Go!

[Frando (Franz Heinzmann)]

FYI, I just found this quite interesting post on Hiverminds Magazine via 
PHPDeveloper.org [1] - so this is already drawing quite some attention 
(which is a Good Thing, IMHO).

http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3409

regards,
frando

[1] http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/8146

Larry Garfield schrieb:
> 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?
>