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To: Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] POSIX regex
From: mls@pooteeweet.org (Lukas Kahwe Smith)

Larry Garfield wrote:
> Non-core PHP developer speaking, so read with that in mind:
> 
> One of the things that held back PHP 5 adoption for so long, IMO, is the large 
> amount of FUD that surrounded it.  Even now, 3 years after it was released, I 
> keep seeing the argument that "I can't drop PHP 4 and use PHP 5, then I have 
> to rewrite *everything* to use objects.  I hate objects."  That is, of 
> course, completely untrue, and if you're paying even moderate attention it's 
> not at all difficult to write code that runs just fine in both PHP 4 and PHP 
> 5, with and without register_globals and magic_quotes.  All it takes is a 
> little forethought and not letting yourself be sloppy.

I have seen little of that. But I have seen issues due to array_merge() 
changes. But more importantly our handling of E_STRICT has made it 
difficult for many.

> Writing PHP 5/6 compatible code needs to be just as easy, if not easier, in 
> addition to having better marketing to head off the FUD.  Taking a stance 
> of "you'll have to start from scratch if you want to be PHP 6 compatible, oh 
> well" is an absolutely sure-fire way to guarantee that no one uses PHP 6 for 
> anything except niche markets.  

I see it more as a question of being open about whats going on. If we 
would have had the upgrading guides from the beginning of 5.0.z, I think 
things would have been easier. The fact that our x.0.z releases are not 
particularly popular is another issue.

I think the biggest challenge PHP5 faced however was that it was mainly 
about making developers life easier, since PHP4 already enables you to 
do pretty much any kind of web site if you are willing to put in the 
required time. Native unicode to me feels a bit more like adding 
something that was not really doable before (sure you can but that would 
mean writing every lib yourself, so the time required is beyond the vast 
majority of dev teams). Then again its not like all developers will jump 
on unicode the second its released (mainly because not all end users are 
asking for this). But the point is, getting very high adoption rates for 
new PHP releases will always be hard.

regards,
Lukas