Posted by Stephen Leaf on 09/15/05 05:10

On Tuesday 13 September 2005 05:52 pm, Ryan A wrote:
> [x] I never work with PHP 4 anymore, all my work is with PHP 5

so far I've not found any hosts that do PHP5, however I do all my own hosting
anyway.
I've switched to use PHP5 because I was interested in doing XSL, and the
concept of doing objects intrigues me.

XSL support in 5 is far superior. It's a walk in the park now, where as before
it was quite confusing.

I'm currently doing a project where the client doesn't know what she wants...
because of this I'm constantly having to redo sections to add what she wants.
So taking this approach for this client has saved me from 10 times more work.

I personally can't wait for PDO. I do lots of projects that all use SQL
(SQLite, PostgreSQL and MySQL) Right now I have to recode everything to use
the right DB. with my newest project I'm using SQLite with a custom Object to
handle the DB Object. It's actually design with PDO in mind.
After they get PDO in and working well It'll save me hours of work.

From that Website about the 6 dumbest ideas. I guess you could say I'm an
"early adopter" I like ideas that'll save me time in the long run, even if
I'm the one that has to do tons of testing to make it usable. The long run is
what matters to me. If I can spend time learning, testing.. and then later be
able to do something in 5 mins that'd take 15 the old way.. I'm up for it.
Has to be someone to do the testing to bring projects forward isn't
there ? ;)

From the opposite side of the spectrum I have had my share of upgrade issues.
One was from 5.0.4 to 5.0.5

$this->urlArr[0] = array_pop($arr = explode("&",$this->urlArr[0]));

I still have to scratch my head as to why I *need* that "$arr = "
prior to 5.0.5 this was not needed.
$this->urlArr[0] = array_pop(explode("&",$this->urlArr[0]));

Perhaps someone here could tell me what was change to make this happen.. and
how does that change make the engine better? It seemed to work perfectly fine
before.

I've also had to upgrade a few classes written for PHP4 specifically ones that
like to use:
var $variable;

Overall, If you can upgrade to 5 .. do so. the advantages in my cases have
been so nice. If you can't upgrade, Don't. Use what works.
I personally would urge you to upgrade to 5 if you wanna get in deep with
objects. I'm sure that 3 and 4 can do them just fine. but whats the use of
learning how to do OOP in something that has been updated? Or worded
differently, Why learn old ways when you can benefit from newer
ideas/implementations ?
It'd be like putting logs under a platform and repositioning the log that came
out the back in the front again as a way to move something instead of wagon
just because it's always worked before.

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