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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Making "backwards compatibility" discussions more constructive
From: lester@lsces.co.uk (Lester Caine)

Nikita Popov wrote:
> PS: I think that it would be nice to adjust the releaseprocess RFC to
> clarify this point, to make things clearer for both contributors and
> end-users. The current promise sounds a lot like "You can just update from
> 5.4 to 5.5 and won't need to make any code changes", but for any
> non-trivial (legacy) codebase that's pretty far from the truth.

We have to face the facts here ... When I started writing PHP I could produce 
code that while written for PHP5 still worked on a PHP4 system. Today that is 
totally lost - and quite rightly - but even the idea that code written for 5.x 
will work on 5.x+1 neatly sidesteps the fact that code written for PHP5.2 will 
not run on the majority of PHP deployments today. YES we can configure a later 
PHP installation so that legacy code can run, but I would contend that no-one 
can create an installation today - in an ISP environment - which will allow 
legacy 5.2 applications to co exist with 5.3/4 applications! Which is why ISP's 
are having such a hard time moving their clients forward.

Added to this reality is the fact that the browser landscape has also moved on 
in a similar manor. While 5 years ago IE6 was the standard, how many of those 
applications will actually display on a modern browser? Yes they can be 
workable, but certainly not tidy to use.

I have been bashed every time I say that we need a major shift more often, but 
while most of the frameworks that use PHP are doing major overhauls every year 
with a major version as often as anually, PHP is still pretending that 10 year 
old code is compatible. This is simply not the case, so lets get rid of PHP5.6, 
get a clean sheet going for PHP6 and allow those of us who have real customers 
to support get everything up to a level playing field ready to look at a shift 
to PHP6 some time in the future. As yet even PHP5.5 is not on my own game plan.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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