Go PHP 5

[Eric]

I, as well as many open source developers, have joined the Go PHP 5 initiative. Starting February 5th, 2008 - we will be dropping support for PHP version 4, and will be using PHP 5 instead. My Domain Name Portfolio project is one of many going in this direction.

Making this post here, to encourage any of you that have open source projects, to join this initiative.

You can find the official press release here (posted on my blog - cause the original is a PDF which a lot may not be able to view).



:kickass:

 

[JFS]

my opinion in this is that php 5 never really took off. when compared to other languages that when we see an update everyone goes rushing updating it, the same didn't happen to php. Many people still use php 4, and in many servers you don't have php 5, there are also the cases when you buy scripts, you buy a php script and it may not work on a php5 server without modifications.

 

[Eric]

Sorry PHP4 lovers, but PHP has officially announced PHP4's end of life.

PHP 4 end of life announcement
[12-Jul-2007]

Today it is exactly three years ago since PHP 5 has been released. In those three years it has seen many improvements over PHP 4. PHP 5 is fast, stable & production-ready and as PHP 6 is on the way, PHP 4 will be discontinued.

The PHP development team hereby announces that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. We will continue to make critical security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. Please use the rest of this year to make your application suitable to run on PHP 5.

For documentation on migration for PHP 4 to PHP 5, we would like to point you to our migration guide. There is additional information available in the PHP 5.0 to PHP 5.1 and PHP 5.1 to PHP 5.2 migration guides as well.

www.php.net

 

[JFS]

then answer me this... why not wait a few weeks/months more and migrate directly to php 6 ? that way at least you migrate to something that is new and not 3 years old and at the midle of it's life ( or near end ).

 

[dhscott]

then answer me this... why not wait a few weeks/months more and migrate directly to php 6 ? that way at least you migrate to something that is new and not 3 years old and at the midle of it's life ( or near end ).

Perhaps this is the reasoning for discontinuing support for PHP 4...

Windows won't officially support Windows 98 / ME anymore now that Vista has come out, but they did when XP was out because they knew that some don't like upgrading when everything is working fine. But there comes a time when they have to force them to do it, otherwise they lose business.

Ofcourse, that example doesn't apply to PHP .

 

[Eric]

PHP6 is still alpha, and although PHP5 is 3 years old, it is far ahead of PHP4 and just short of PHP6. Iit's not in the middle of it's life, it's just now beginning.

 

[Hitch]

Though, it's good to use PHP 5, with many fixes, and it's good to encourage hosts to upgrade, i can't see this being of any good.

Many servers will still be running PHP 4, far into PHP 5.
Alot of server admins won't know how to upgrade, anyone can buy a server these days, with very little knowledge of how it really works.

I will still support PHP 4 in scripts, i won't drop it until, there is a huge percentage using PHP 5.

 

[Eric]

Though, it's good to use PHP 5, with many fixes, and it's good to encourage hosts to upgrade, i can't see this being of any good.

Many servers will still be running PHP 4, far into PHP 5.
Alot of server admins won't know how to upgrade, anyone can buy a server these days, with very little knowledge of how it really works.

I will still support PHP 4 in scripts, i won't drop it until, there is a huge percentage using PHP 5.

Once PHP4 is 'dead', (Dec. 2007, and altogether Aug. 2008) You'll see many hosts and sys admins that DO know how to upgrade, upgrading to PHP5 - and then, PHP 5's usage % will increase dramatically

The people you're referring to is actually quite a small number.

 

[Rasta Panda]

I think you should stick with PHP4. It's easy to use.

 

[dhscott]

I think you should stick with PHP4. It's easy to use.

So was Visual Basic. Still use that?

 

[paaaaaaaaaa]

I think this is great news. There are way too many hosts out there that only have php4. So hopefully this gets noticed enough for them to upgrade.

After consideration I have decided to join in with this with my project. 5th of February should be plenty of time for the percentages to change now that php.net are discontinuing support for php4.

Anyone still using php4 at that time will just have to use an older version of Ripe.

 

[Noobie]

Any application that performs it's function for 6 years with no problems or bugs is written well.

I have misgivings about a platform that achieves market share at the expense of longevity and backwards compatibility.

In 20 years my PHP4 app will probably still be functioning and doing it's work.

All well said including the rest of your posts.

 

[beaver6813]

I'm slowly moving to PHP5 as a developer, the main problem is having to support two variations of the language means more effort because you have to support two branches instead of one.

As for the host issue, when all major control panels shift over to allowing support for PHP5 and Apache 2.2 (why do hosts still run 1.3!?) much more easily, which cPanel will be going the end of this month, beginning of next. And others I think many more hosts will switch. Usually for people PHP and Apache come already setup, the initial setup is crucial and should be set to PHP5 and Apache 2.2 as default.

 

[liam_d]

I think it is good news.

But i think the website is crap. What it needs is a list of things that we would have to stop using/change etc etc.

 

[JFS]

although i wasn't thinking of changing so soon, i already have some people interessed in scripts on php5 server's.
oh well i guess better sooner then later hehehe

 

[abdussamad]

I think a trend we will be seeing in the next decade is platforms that support any language you like, so these arguments become a thing of the past.

Not that I use it but I think they already have that. Its called .NET .

I actually find php4 rather strange The day I decided to learn php I happily picked up a book on php5. I rather enjoyed the try-catch error handling and OOP features.

But when I started to make my own sites I was very disappointed with the lack of support for php5. Things have changed considerably now with plenty of hosting options that support it. I look forward to the widespread adoption of php5.

 

[marketstrat]

thanks for information...

 

[hanz]

I guess it is time to move to PHP 5... actually I have been coding on PHP 5 for quite some time already, just my server has still been using PHP 4.

 

[dhscott]

Perhaps we should start a thread with PHP 5 Verified Hosting Providers, it might be useful.

Although, having said that, I'm sure most will switch to PHP5 in anycase so it will only be a matter of time.

 

[Peter]

Most will probably start to switch or make provisions for people using php 4 now.

1 thing I think is a bit misleading with the go php 5 initiative is that the only reason that for example some of the hosts have put their name to it is because it is free advertising and nothing to do with them wanting php 5 to advance.

 

[seanboy]

PHP 5 is a huge step over 4.

Ruby is also an excellent choice.