Matt runs one of the largest PHP4 projects, and he’s pissed.
It isn’t always appropriate to kill an old, successful product to boost a newer, failing one. The PHP team seems desperate. PHP4 is so sticky that it seems it will haunt our hosts for another decade.
But I still support the killing project. I want them to pull the plug, even if in desperation.
I feel like the PHP team is concentrating on the wrong things. I’ve stressed compatibility oh so many times. It’s unreasonable to trash applications every few minor releases, and we can’t expect different outcomes when we ask our users and supporters for too much.
Nothing could have saved PHP5 from such a fate, not even the brightest ideas. Because when it comes to coding PHP, the hard part usually has little to do with the underlying server-side language
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During the days of beta PHP5, everyone on the mailing list was for the backward compatibility breakage. Everyone wanted some cool new features. OOP handling needed to be Java’ized. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the argument or not. What does matter is why on earth wasn’t compatibility broken enough? If you’re going to break it anyway, why not do it for all the right reasons? Why not make a case compelling enough to drive adoption?
The truth is, PHP5 is mediocre. It’s a fine language, strongly backed by thousands of libraries and extensions. But it’s still mediocre in comparison to its older brother.
I’m for killing PHP4. If anything, it will clear the core developers’ heads, and could reward PHP’ers back their confidence.