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Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2023 17:25:34 +0000
To: "php internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Future stability of PHP?
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Mon, Apr 10, 2023, at 3:32 AM, Deleu wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 8, 2023, 6:04 PM Ilija Tovilo <tovilo.ilija@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Sadly, there's a conflict of interest here. There are people who want
>> to keep running their existing websites without having to make any
>> changes, and there are people who are using PHP daily and would like
>> to see the language evolve. We would like to satisfy both of these
>> groups but that is difficult when they are often directly opposed. I
>> do think that if we only manage to satisfy the former, PHP will
>> gradually become less and less significant. That would be sad.
>>
>> Ilija
>
>
> That makes total sense to me. On the other hand, throwing the existing
> community out and chasing after a new community puts PHP at a very delicate
> spot. There's a large world out there that thinks PHP is still PHP 4. Of
> the large group of PHP adopters that stayed with the language for the last
> decade, a large set seem to have their interests neglected and are being
> forced into greenfield/rewrite. If you've bet money on PHP 15 years ago and
> you're now being forced by the language to stay behind or rewrite, what are
> the odds that PHP will keep being the betting choice?

> On the other hand, throwing the existing
> community out and chasing after a new community puts PHP at a very delicate
> spot.

No.  Stop.  This is not what Ilija said at all.  It is FUD to the point of disinformation, and is an insult to the hundreds of people that have worked, mostly on their own time, to give you the most popular web language in the world, for free.

> There's a large world out there that thinks PHP is still PHP 4. 

Most of them that I've met are not PHP developers.  They're JS or Python or Ruby devs who like to hate on PHP as a way to build their own community cred.

> now being forced by the language to stay behind or rewrite

This is BS.  I have worked on a 20+ year old code base.  It's BS.  Stop spreading BS.

Perhaps the risk analyses et al that Mark Baker talked about would be more likely to happen if core devs weren't insulted on a regular basis by people making hyperbolic lies and trashing their existing efforts.

I've written about this before, just recently.  Please read it twice before posting again and insulting the work of those who have given you a platform for your career, for free.

https://peakd.com/hive-168588/@crell/upgrading-php-upgrades

--Larry Garfield