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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: PHP 5.4 branch and trunk
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("larry@garfieldtech.com")

On 3/19/10 1:31 PM, Nate Abele wrote:
>> The point is that, for instance, PHP 5.3 was not a trivial upgrade for coders or hosters.  Sure it's mostly compatible, and you certainly can write code that works from 5.0->5.3 just fine, and if not then you're probably doing something wrong... but that's most of the PHP code out there right now. :-)  And naturally you can't test your code against 5.3 until it's out.
>
> Larry, to mitigate this issue, please refer to the exhaustive list of instructions here:
>
> http://twitter.com/nateabele/status/10733251789
>
> PLEASE NOTE: This also applies to user-land applications with test suites (and here I'm risking showing my ignorance by blindly assuming Drupal does, in fact, have a test suite).
>
> Please see http://snaps.php.net/ and http://qa.php.net/ for more information.
>
> Thanks,
> - Nate

Drupal 7 has an extensive test suite, using our own testing framework 
rather than phpt.  (Let's not get into a debate about why that's the 
case; it's neither here nor there nor would I even be on just one side 
of it. <g>)

But that's for a high-end project.  It doesn't really help the code 
slingers that happen to have code they threw together that is holding 
back a hosting company who don't even know what "make" is.

I am not saying people shouldn't be testing code.  I'm saying the 
barrier to entry to testing common code found in the wild on a new 
release of PHP is higher than you seem to be assuming.

--Larry Garfield