Poll: How many using PHP4, how many on PHP5

[Elpie]

Mambo currently supports both PHP4 and PHP5, however doing so is holding our development back. We have become aware that PHP 5.2.5 breaks some backward compatibility with PHP4 and this is impacting on Mambo. While we can code workarounds for most issues, we have to ask ourselves whether it is practical to keep trying to make a "one size fits all" PHP code, or whether we should set an end date for our support of PHP4.

There are many reasons why changing to PHP 5- only would be a good move. It's better code for a start. Maintaining one branch of PHP is far easier on our developers, but PHP 5 also allows us to do more things.

There are no plans to change at this stage and there needs to be a whole lot of planning and discussion before we could even consider setting a PHP4 end-of-life date for Mambo, but we need to start those discussions with you now.

Please vote on the poll and add your comments to this thread.
Thanks

From GoPHP5.org:

PHP 4 has served the web developer community for seven years now, and served it well. However, it also shows its age. Most of PHP 4's shortcomings have been addressed by PHP 5, released three years ago, but the transition from PHP 4 to PHP 5 has been slow for a number of reasons.
PHP developers cannot leverage PHP 5's full potential without dropping support for PHP 4, but PHP 4 is still installed on a majority of shared web hosts and users would then be forced to switch to a different application. Web hosts cannot upgrade their servers to PHP 5 without making it impossible for their users to run PHP 4-targeted web apps, and have no incentive to go to the effort of testing and deploying PHP 5 while most web apps are still compatible with PHP 4 and the PHP development team still provides maintenance support for PHP 4. The PHP development team, of course, can't drop maintenance support for PHP 4 while most web hosts still run PHP 4.
It is a dangerous cycle, and one that needs to be broken. The PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed software projects have all agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, any new feature releases will have a minimum version requirement of at least PHP 5.2.0. Furthermore, the listed web hosts have agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, they will include PHP 5.2 (or a more recent version) in their service offer.
It is our belief that this will provide web hosts reason to upgrade and the PHP development team the ability to retire PHP 4 and focus efforts on PHP 5 and the forthcoming PHP 6, all without penalizing any existing project for being "first out of the gate".

[Superdaantje]

I use PHP 4.* For testing I use both versions.

I tested some off my extensions with PHP 5.2.5 and the had some compatibility troubles. This is an know issue with PHP 5.2.5

[DOBius]

im using PHP Version 5.2.4

[nozema]

I have no influence, I'm at a host but i run on 5.2.1

[meredy]

My personal work is on php 5 but have clients who are attached to their host for whatever reason who are on php 4--
sometimes it is hard to dislodge them--
it took me 6 months to get a host to move
from 4.1 to 4.3 on a linux server
and they say they can't go higher--why not??!!

Does nayone have good persuasive arguments for why it is important from a non-techie, client type perspective. That way everyone might get on board.

[Elpie]

PHP4 was released in 2000, so it is 8 years old now and in technology that is very old. Time does not stand still and there have been many releases within the PHP4 branch since then but in 2004, already four years ago now, PHP5 was released. PHP5 is more reliable and makes better use of server resources. It also allows web application developers to include more features. There are just some things that cannot be done in the old PHP4 and this impacts on how clients can use web applications.

PHP5 also has greater security, which is important because no client wants to lose visitors, or data, or lose money due to downtime. On the security side alone, it makes economic sense to be using PHP5.

For clients who want to be using modern, fast, and feature-rich web applications they really have no choice but to be using PHP5. Mambo already has a number of features that are available only to people who are running Mambo on PHP5 and we can move ahead a lot faster with development if we did not have to continue supporting PHP4.

Just as the Mambo that was released in 2000 is not something anyone would want to run today, and just as Mambo has kept updating and improving, and adding new features, so has PHP.
Now, consider this - if you were looking for a consultant to install Mambo for you, would you trust that the consultant who offered to install Mambo 3.0 was keeping up with security and giving you the most modern, feature-rich Mambo version to use? Or would you feel that you were getting the latest, more mature Mambo if the consultant installed Mambo 4.6.3?

Some hosts are not upgrading from PHP4 because they believe their clients want PHP4. Some are just lazy and not keeping their servers up to date. But most hosts these days offer their clients a choice of PHP4 or PHP5 and many are going to PHP5 only now.
If a host is still running only PHP4, would you feel confident that their other scripts are up-to-date? I wouldn't. And this also means I would wonder about how skilled the host was and how secure their servers are.

I don't recommend that anyone just ups and changes hosts though. But if you are stuck on a PHP4 server I would definitely recommend you ask your hosts why they are not offering PHP5. (If they say its too new, then move hosts - PHP 5 has only been out since 2004! )

[Elpie]

If this poll closed before you had a chance to vote, here's your opportunity. I have opened a new poll here: http://forum.mambo-foundation.org/sh...ad.php?t=11666

If you have already voted on this poll please don't vote on the new one.
We will be adding the results together so we can get a clear picture of how many would be affected if we move to supporting PHP5 only.

Thanks!