Support for PHP4 Ends December 2007

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Christopher
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Support for PHP4 Ends December 2007

Post by Christopher »

I am not sure it is an official announcement, but I recently saw this comment that the PHP Group will not be releasing new versions after December 31st, 2007.

http://derickrethans.nl/php_quebec_conf ... _php_4.php
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Awesome. Its about time for use to move to PHP5 full bore.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Everah wrote:Awesome. Its about time for use to move to PHP5 full bore.
I suspect it's more to do with PHP6
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

I'd agree with that. Just as long as we move away from PHP4 now.
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Oren
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Post by Oren »

Yes :P We are going to have the same problem, but PHP6 will take the role of current PHP5, and PHP5 will take the role of current PHP4... confusing huh? :?
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Not really.. Developers using PHP5 will likely upgrade to 6 (at least in testing and such) unless they have code in the wild they must support. At which point they may branch their source and build 6 compatible versions. 4 will continue to lose favor among edge developers. The gap between edge developers and mainstream developers will widen for a time then shrink as they (hopefully) shift to PHP 5.

However, since some people still run PHP 3 out there, there will likewise be people to stick to PHP 4 until the cows come home.
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Oren
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Post by Oren »

feyd wrote:some people still run PHP 3 out there
Really?!!? Are you sure? 8O 8O 8O
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Christopher
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Post by Christopher »

I don't think the jump from 5 to 6 will be as big as 4 to 5. The main changes in PHP6 seem to be additions (Unicode, opcode cache) rather than changes. In fact, there have been more code changes necessary from 5.0 to 5.2 that will be needed from 5.2+ to 6.0.

Honestly, 5.0 to 5.2 has been pretty bumpy and is still bumping -- now in hopes that 5.2.2 will wrap-up this round of security fixes.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

It's good to have a finish date - it should cement the idea in programmer's minds that PHP4 is not a long lasting platform. It should also encourage more hosts to finally move - they can only go for so long on a PHP version before it's security issues finally reach drowning point.

It's also true PHP6 is not a big jump - you can compile PHP6 from a snapshot and see how things look if you want a preview. It's not all that bad - vastly different from jumping from PHP4 to 5, and then tracking the PHP5 changes. PHP5 still has API changes happening - 5.1 to 5.2 has seen a lot of changes.
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AKA Panama Jack
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Post by AKA Panama Jack »

That's really not going to mean too much for a long time. Expect PHP 4 to be widely used by hosts for 5-10 years minimum after the last official support date. Just because there will not be any more bug fixes or feature enhancements after that date doesn't mean hosts will instantly start dropping support.

As long as it works it will still be used on most hosts for a very long time. It would take a huge application killing bug in the PHP 4 core that was never going to be fixed to change that.
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Post by alvinphp »

Larger hosting companies that have 20k+ clients will not be able to completely upgrade to PHP 6 because they will have clients use old PHP scripts and trying to make them upgrade would be a nightmare. Especially when the owner is not tech savvy and does not want to change something that is not broken. My current host is still on PHP 4 because of this very reason.
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Post by jmut »

AKA Panama Jack wrote:That's really not going to mean too much for a long time. Expect PHP 4 to be widely used by hosts for 5-10 years minimum after the last official support date. Just because there will not be any more bug fixes or feature enhancements after that date doesn't mean hosts will instantly start dropping support.

As long as it works it will still be used on most hosts for a very long time. It would take a huge application killing bug in the PHP 4 core that was never going to be fixed to change that.
I really thing this huge application killing bug is not that hard to find. There sure will be something. I say 3-4 years max.... to feel the pressure of no new releases of php4 ...bugs crawling on all serverers and hosts switch stuff :)
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Post by jmut »

alvinphp wrote:Larger hosting companies that have 20k+ clients will not be able to completely upgrade to PHP 6 because they will have clients use old PHP scripts and trying to make them upgrade would be a nightmare. Especially when the owner is not tech savvy and does not want to change something that is not broken. My current host is still on PHP 4 because of this very reason.
I would not agree on that.
If they don't switch they loose another 20k+ users, the new one.
So they will just be...ok in a 5months we are switching to php6. like it or not.
So it is not just about keeping old users but getting new as well.
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AKA Panama Jack
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Post by AKA Panama Jack »

I think you will find that many hosting companies will and are offering a choice of either PHP 4 or PHP 5. Some admittedly have some weird hacks to allow both on the same server.

It will be interesting to see if these same hosting companies will offer a choice of all three. Or will they end up dropping one and still offer two? If they only offer two I bet it will one of two combinations... PHP 4 and PHP 5.... or PHP 4 and PHP 6.

I think PHP 4 may last longer than PHP 5 after PHP 6 comes out when it comes to hosting company support.
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

AKA Panama Jack wrote:Just because there will not be any more bug fixes or feature enhancements after that date doesn't mean hosts will instantly start dropping support.
When major security holes get found and nobody's going to fix them, servers are being compromised and customers are leaving for being annoyed that they didn't "fix" it I think hosts will change soon enough. There's no way PHP4 will go another 10 years without having some major holes discovered. It may not even be that PHP already has the "holes" directly, but apache updates etc could inadvertently create issues. 10 years is a very long time.
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