# Things move slowly in the real world ;) - Thread: https://externals.io/message/64143 - Original archive: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/64143 - Started by Lester Caine on 2012-12-04T09:04:45+00:00 - Messages: 10 - Reply by email to internals@lists.php.net - More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt --- ## #64143 — Lester Caine — 2012-12-04T09:04:45+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64143 Not sure if the date is significant, but just received notification that 1&1 will drop support for PHP4 and PHP5.2 from April 1, 2013 - yes PHP4 is still available as their default! The move is to PHP5.4, but the interesting thing is that they are calling it PHP6 simply to isolate it from PHP5.2 http://faq.1and1.co.uk/scripting/php/5.html I keep being told that 'It's just a number', but this is an example of why rolling yet another significantly different version of PHP5 causes problems in user land. The frameworks are jumping to the next major release to support 5.4 over 5.2 and providers like 1&1 need an easy way to manage what they PROVIDE to users. -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk --- ## #64144 — Sherif Ramadan — 2012-12-04T09:16:19+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64144 · In reply to: #64143 What a great way to confuse people. > Not sure if the date is significant, but just received notification that > 1&1 will drop support for PHP4 and PHP5.2 from April 1, 2013 - yes PHP4 is > still available as their default! > > The move is to PHP5.4, but the interesting thing is that they are calling > it PHP6 simply to isolate it from PHP5.2 > http://faq.1and1.co.uk/**scripting/php/5.html > > I keep being told that 'It's just a number', but this is an example of why > rolling yet another significantly different version of PHP5 causes problems > in user land. The frameworks are jumping to the next major release to > support 5.4 over 5.2 and providers like 1&1 need an easy way to manage what > they PROVIDE to users. > > -- > Lester Caine - G8HFL > ----------------------------- > Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=**contact > L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk > EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ > Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk > Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.**uk April 1, 2013 > > The date is somewhat suspicious ;) --- ## #64146 — johannes@schlueters.de — 2012-12-04T13:21:18+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64146 · In reply to: #64143 > > > The move is to PHP5.4, but the interesting thing is that they are > calling it > PHP6 simply to isolate it from PHP5.2 > http://faq.1and1.co.uk/scripting/php/5.html well, the actual reason is that they offered the old PHP 6 before as experimental and then simply swapped that for 5.3 back in the days and since then have been lazy. > I keep being told that 'It's just a number', but this is an example of > why rolling yet another significantly different version of PHP5 causes > problems in user land. The frameworks are jumping to the next major > release to support 5.4 over 5.2 and providers like 1&1 need an easy > way to manage what they PROVIDE to users. So how does a string matter? - We might also call it PHP 98 or PHP 2000 or PHP XP or whatever. What's the difference? Only that peopleare more afraid. Having difference between minor versions isn't new i.e. PHP 4.4 broke many things due to the fixes in the reference handling there. Compared to that the breakage between 5.2 and 5.3 or 5.3 and 5.4 is small. It is especially small when comparing it with PHP 3 to PHP 4 (complete reimplementation, changed behavior of include/require etc.) and PHP 4 to PHP 5 (redone OO model, changing objects from being value types to reference types) johannes --- ## #64148 — Sanford Whiteman — 2012-12-04T17:47:01+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64148 · In reply to: #64143 Lester, are you seriously suggesting we coddle providers who either [a] Willfully misrepresent the PHP versioning system, showing they are utterly tuned out of the PHP support community? or [b] Play unfunny practical jokes on their users and/or troll this very list? If anything, their behavior is a call for some official censure, IMO. I have sympathy for their users, but the only cure for that is to find a responsible provider. If providers just told the truth about the "whys" of what they support, instead of lying about stability, security, or other "boldface" reasons, users would be better served. One such reason: "We should have done this long ago, but held off longer than necessary for budget reasons. Now, we're behind the curve and can't get new customers who are version-aware. You'll enjoy the performance rewards of re/building for the new version." -- Sandy --- ## #64149 — Lester Caine — 2012-12-04T21:50:36+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64149 · In reply to: #64148 Sanford Whiteman wrote: > Lester, are you seriously suggesting we coddle providers who either > > [a] Willfully misrepresent the PHP versioning system, showing they are > utterly tuned out of the PHP support community? Well they are only one of the ISP's who have been posting PHP6 as their next supported version, and been waiting for it to appear. These are the people who have to support naive users who are NOT in a position to re-write code just to make it work with later versions of PHP5, and needing to still run PHP5.2 in parallel with PHP5.4 is not the easiest thing to do on shared hosting? But I was posting it so that people will not be surprised when 'php6' starts appearing in bug reports where users have changed and now need help to fix the problems. I stopped using 1&1's versions of PHP a number of years ago, switching to my own machines with them simply so I could control versions but I can quite understand why they have not switched away from PHP5.2 and they are now providing PHP5.4 as a selectable option, but which HAS to co-exist with their existing working infrastructure! How else could this situation be handled? I'm lead to believe that the date was chosen simply because they do consider the situation a bit of a joke ... -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk --- ## #64150 — Levi Morrison — 2012-12-04T23:57:40+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64150 · In reply to: #64149 > I'm lead to believe that the date was chosen simply because they do consider > the situation a bit of a joke ... Speaking as a current and long-time customer of 1and1 hosting, I do believe that their business situation is a bit of a joke. I know this is not a list to talk about various hosting providers, but I'll just say I won't be doing business with them for much longer. This is just another point of feedback I can give to them when I do change service. Incorrectly reporting your service offering regardless of what type of business you run is a really poor decision. --- ## #64151 — Kris Craig — 2012-12-05T00:26:54+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64151 · In reply to: #64150 On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Levi Morrison wrote: > > […] > consider > > […] > > Speaking as a current and long-time customer of 1and1 hosting, I do > believe that their business situation is a bit of a joke. I know this > is not a list to talk about various hosting providers, but I'll just > say I won't be doing business with them for much longer. This is just > another point of feedback I can give to them when I do change service. > Incorrectly reporting your service offering regardless of what type of > business you run is a really poor decision. > > -- > > > > I think we should do what Microsoft does with Windows and just pull version names out of a hat. We could call 5.5 "PHP XP" and 5.6 "PHP Vista". A separate branch with slightly more features could be called "PHP Vista Ultimate" and hosting providers could use a custom-branded one called "PHP Vista Ultimate for Workgroups." We could release 6.0 right now with tons of bugs and call it "PHP Derp," then a few months later put out 6.1 as "PHP 7." The goal should be to confuse the hell out of our users as much as possible. Step 1: Confuse users. Step 3: Profit. Seriously, though, 1and1 is a joke. That's not exactly breaking news. If it really bugs us that much, we could always put up a statement on the website rebuking their misrepresentation of our version numbering and leak it to a few tech blogs. Otherwise, it's probably best to just laugh it off and move on. --Kris --- ## #64152 — Adam Harvey — 2012-12-05T01:18:34+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64152 · In reply to: #64151 > Seriously, though, 1and1 is a joke. That's not exactly breaking news. If > it really bugs us that much, we could always put up a statement on the > website rebuking their misrepresentation of our version numbering and leak > it to a few tech blogs. Otherwise, it's probably best to just laugh it off > and move on. I had a rant about it on Twitter yesterday, and will probably use it as the punchline for a joke in a conference talk next month. That's probably about the level of disgust, er... recognition it deserves. Adam --- ## #64155 — jpauli — 2012-12-05T10:34:04+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/64143#64155 · In reply to: #64152 > > > […] > If > > […] > leak > > […] > off > > […] > > I had a rant about it on Twitter yesterday, and will probably use it > as the punchline for a joke in a conference talk next month. That's > probably about the level of disgust, er... recognition it deserves. > > I like the idea :-) Julien