[UPHPU] PHP 4 EOL Announcement

[Walt Haas]

On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 09:14 -0600, Wade Preston Shearer wrote:
> > *shrugs* Most of what I code nowadays is PHP5, but I don't see how  
> > it matters one way or the other.  Am I missing something?  Does it  
> > hurt the community to have my code running a generation behind?
> 
> I think it does, yes. If no one is updating their code and  
> progressing forward then the hosts don't update the versions they  
> install on their servers… and if the servers don't have the new  
> version then people are not motivated to write using the new  
> features… and the cycle hinders progress.

I think that what has happened is a fragmentation of the PHP world.  We
now have what amounts to a fork in the PHP applications space.  In
practical terms I have to write software that runs on both PHP 4 and PHP
5 to reach the maximum number of users, or write software using the more
modern features of PHP 5 to maximize quality in a more abstract way.
There are, for example, long term re-usability benefits to using
abstract classes, interfaces, and protected class attributes.  Today,
whichever choice I make results in reduced re-usability.

-- Walt