Posted by Matthew Weier O'Phinney on 08/14/05 20:52

* Robert Cummings <robert@interjinn.com> :
> On Sat, 2005-08-13 at 23:51, Matthew Weier O'Phinney wrote:
> > * Sebastian <sebastian@broadbandgaming.net> :
> > > Jochem Maas wrote:
> > > > if you haven't seen it yet and are interested in the future
> > > > of php you might be interested in the _big_ thread on php-internals
> > > > that starts with the message:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.manucorp.com/archives/internals/200508/msg00398.php
> > > >
> > > > IMHO every halfbaked php coder should read it ;-)
> > > >
> > > > to cut it short for those to busy, or what not, Rasmus offered his
> > > > his vision of php6 (which seems will be the version that will first
> > > > bring the awesome unicode [and date?] functionality to the masses
> > > > - hey thats us! :-) ) and there seems to be pretty much unanimous
> > > > agreement on his main points (lots of discussion on more issues/ideas
> > > > other people have brung up in response)
> > > >
> > > > the future's bright, the future is green.
> > >
> > > why php6 and not php5? look how long it took to get to php4 (with php5
> > > just starting to rolling out) and people are already talking about php6?
> >
> > My observation was that more people jumped to PHP4 from PHP3 than have
> > so far from PHP4 to PHP5. And PHP5 has hardly just started to roll out;
> > the official 5.0.0 release was over a year ago.
> >
> > > sure it is just a 'versioning' thing, but right now huge numbers of php
> > > users aren't using php5 (including me) on production environments, let
> > > alone start talking about php 6.
> >
> > And why aren't you using PHP5? Is there any specific reason? Is it
> > because your service provider doesn't offer it? If so, ask them why --
> > and report it here. As soon as PHP5 hit stable, I started using it, and
> > I've never looked back. Performance is better, and there are many
> > features -- exceptions, the new OOP model, autoload, iterators, etc. --
> > that simply have no analogs in PHP4.
> >
> > > anyway, i think i will be with php4 for a long time to come.
> >
> > Please tell the list why -- what does PHP4 offer over PHP5 for you? I
> > honestly want to know, and I'm sure there are others who would be
> > interested to see why people are not making the switch.
>
> While I've dabbled with PHP5 and made my framework compatible with it I
> haven't bothered to make a wholehearted leap into it. The following
> reasons basicly sum up why, and are probably common amongst those that
> aren't leaping into PHP5.
>
> - Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Many PHP
> developers have spent years using PHP4 and know it inside and
> out and have come to terms with all of it's deficiencies... as
> few as those may be once you learn how to adapt to them.

This is a fear-based argument. Arguments like this prevent innovation.
Yes, I know PHP4's deficiencies and quirks inside and out -- but that
doesn't mean I should stick with them. If I were to use that argument, I
would never have left perl for PHP.

PHP5 actually *fixes* many of PHP4's deficiences and quirks -- such as
how objects are passed, how errors are handled, etc. I jumped onto PHP5
because I wanted a PHP that worked *better*.

> - A multitude of code already exists that is known to work under
> PHP4 but can be expected to have quirks when run under PHP5.

Explain. My experience, while limited, has shown that well-written PHP4
code generally works quite well under PHP5.

> - Much of the code written in PHP4 works without the new features
> of PHP5 and so there's no compelling reason to invest time and
> resources for 0 ROI other than compatibility with PHP5.

Except that if you stay on an old version of PHP4, someday it will be
deprecated and you'll *have* to upgrade. I, for one, would rather take
smaller steps over time between versions than need to scrap an entire
project and rewrite it from the ground up when the version reaches
end-of-life. The ROI may be zero or small now, but priceless later.

> - PHP5 had a large focus on bringing missing OOP features to PHP
> that have little merit to those who write mostly procedural code.

The OOP rewrite was only a portion of the changes brought into PHP5.
What about exceptions, or the mysqli support, or the simplexml addition,
or...? There's a lot of stuff in PHP5 that procedural programmers can
utilize.

> - Accelerators for PHP5 are not particularly good at this time, so
> unless you've got cash to shell out to Zend (which can be
> expensive for the little guy) then why move from your trusty
> PHP4 accelerators that already get the job done satisfactorily.

As Rasmus noted under separate cover, the APC project has made
tremendous headway in the past few months, and is working fairly well
with PHP5 at this time.

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Zend Certified Engineer
http://weierophinney.net/matthew/

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