Poll: How many using PHP4, how many on PHP5

[Elpie]

We opened a poll awhile back but we are looking for more feedback please.
Originally posted here: http://forum.mambo-foundation.org/sh...ad.php?t=10974
That poll was closed with only 15 responses - if you have already responded on that one please don't respond to this poll. We will add the two together to give us an indication of support for PHP5. Thanks!

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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".

[Smoothound]

I have polled "I use PHP4 but can change to PHP5", this is because my host will be upgrading it's servers which includes changing from php4.4.7 to php5.2.x

[Elpie]

Thanks Smoothound. We are seeing more and more hosts doing this now, which is great. We can do a lot more with Mambo if we are able to code for PHP5 only. So, if a large majority are either on PHP5, moving to PHP5, or can upgrade to it, this would be fantastic.

We will wait for more feedback before making our decision.

[Mack]

PHP4 is end of life and will be unsupported as of 2008-08-08

http://www.php.net/archive/2007.php (Scroll down a little bit)
PHP 4 end of life announcement
[13-Jul-2007]


I wouldn't put a site on any host that still runs PHP4 only. Many have both available during this transition.

Would you use software that no longer has security updates available?

[Elpie]

Thank you to everybody who took part in our two polls, and also to the 3PD's and others who gave feedback both on the forums and privately.

After much discussion and loads of research, the team has made the decision to go with PHP 5. This offers in a new era of improved performance, better code, and security.

You can read the announcement here: http://mambo-news.org/content/view/192/34/

And discuss here: http://forum.mambo-foundation.org/sh...ad.php?p=67870