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Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 01:48:19 +0100
To: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Let's make a 5.7 release
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)

Good evening,

I=92ve kept putting this off, but given the current =93move phpng to =
master=94 vote, I really can=92t delay this any longer.

It looks like PHP 7 is going to happen and phpng will be the base of =
that. While we could move straight to PHP 7 after the release of PHP =
5.6, I think there is some merit in having one more 5.x release, namely =
5.7, which would follow our usual release process and come out next =
year.

PHP 7, as a major release, is likely to take much longer than a usual =
minor release. While some people might think one year is realistic, I =
highly doubt that, as I suspect phpng will not be the only new feature =
PHP 7 will contain. Major releases come with major changes, and I =
suspect some others will crop up, and these might delay the release. =
Because it will probably take two to three years, having a minor release =
in the meantime means userland developers won=92t be starved of new =
features which don=92t need to be in a major release and could be in a =
minor.

Another point is that PHP 7 is probably going to break =
backwards-compatibility more significantly than minors would. For =
starters, phpng will break extension compatibility, and new proposals =
are likely to break userland compatibility as well. By making 5.7 =
happen, developers will have more time to switch to PHP 7 and can keep =
their existing codebases for longer.

As PHP 7 may break backwards-compatibility, 5.7 gives us a chance to add =
deprecation warnings and such to help people prepare for 7.

Finally, it is a fallback. If we do end up targeting 7 to come out next =
year, then if serious issues cause delays to 7, we will have a less =
ambitious and working new release to fall back on.

I should clarify that I don=92t wish to delay phpng at all, I am very =
much in favour of it and excited about it, nor do I expect this to delay =
it. We can simply work on two releases at once: PHP 7, an ambitious =
BC-breaking release to come out later, and PHP 5.7, a safe, non-breaking =
release that will come out next year with the usual schedule.

Thoughts? Thanks!
--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/