6 ms·

I think one overlooked good thing is how little drama I hear about the transition from 5.6 to 7. People seem to be moving on quickly (the large perf improvement

I think one overlooked good thing is how little drama I hear about the transition from 5.6 to 7. People seem to be moving on quickly (the large perf improvements help a lot). I feel it's not going to be long before almost anyone with a half skilled dev to care for it will be on 7 and we won't have a Python 2 vs 3 or Perl 5 vs 6 scenario.

pilif 11y ago
PHP7 is much closer to 5 than Python 3 was to 2. Aside of a few very clearly defined changes, PHP 7 happily runs php5 code. Python 3 made huge changes, especially to string handling and input/output which is what most applications do all the time. And perl 6 is practically a completely different language. I wouldn't count that. What is interesting about php7 is how much effort and how little complaining goes into porting the C extensions: that API has changed a lot and the documentation is still spread all over wikis and blog posts. And yet there is a php7 port of many third party extensions already But I guess the huge performance improvements are a strong motivator even there
vpkaihla 11y ago
The reason for that is that python2=>3 fixed several fundamental problems. 5.6 => 7 is just a incremental upgrade, whatever the version numbering tells you. Most of the PHP problems are still there.
- MAGZine 11y ago
  > The reason for that is that python2=>3 fixed several fundamental problems. 5.6 => 7 is just a incremental upgrade, whatever the version numbering tells you. Most of the PHP problems are still there. too bad for py3's fundamental problem: that it broke the interface so badly, people still don't use it. PHP7 has no such problem, and gets to add boatloads of new features (which will be immediately used/adopted) while deprecating old versions of the language.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - vpkaihla 11y ago
    You don't understand. To fix problems like python3 did, you have to break older code. Php7 did nothing like that, that's why the "porting" process was so light. But it also means it didn't fix any of the big things.
    - sunkencity 11y ago
      imho python3 fixed the issue in the wrong way, so it will never have a great amount of users: down the road the choice will be upgrade to python3 or choose a more modern programming language like go with immense performance boost. I think people will choose to leave python.
      - vpkaihla 11y ago
        So python will be better in version 3 and people will move to better languages? Sounds like a win-win to me.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      > Php7 did nothing like that, that's why the "porting" process was so light. This is nonsense, PHP 7 contains a long list of backwards-compatibility breaks: http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.php http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.php If PHP 7.0 didn't break anything, it would have been called 5.7. The upgrade is easy simply because these breaks do not have as much of an impact as Python's did.
      - vpkaihla 11y ago
        No, it's not nonsense. The things you listed in there are incremental fixes, not fundamental. http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.type-juggling.php http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.type-juggling.php How would you fix this without breaking most PHP code out there? How would you fix ==, > and < behaviour without breaking most PHP code out there? How would you fix Unicode without breaking most PHP code out there? If PHP fixed things like this, it would be a decent programming language, but it would also break a lot of things. Kinda of like what python3 did, only that it didn't have to break quite so much, since python2 was already pretty decent.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  5 to 7 does fix some big problems, however. In particular, it is the first release with uniform syntax for variables (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/uniform_variable_syntax https://wiki.php.net/rfc/uniform_variable_syntax) and an AST-based compiler. It also replaces a lot of PHP-style errors with exceptions.
troels 11y ago
Well - have you considered what happened to PHP 6?
- SannisDev 11y ago
  Exaggerating, PHP6 development team did not find a consensus on the choice of UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 :-D
tangue 11y ago
Python 2 => 3 is more like php4 => php5 transition; it breaks some stuff and there's no no real motivation for people to use the new version. Perl is in his own league.
spdionis 11y ago
I am developing all my new php applications on php7, and so does everyone i know. Just an anecdote.

pilif 11y ago

PHP7 is much closer to 5 than Python 3 was to 2. Aside of a few very clearly defined changes, PHP 7 happily runs php5 code. Python 3 made huge changes, especially to string handling and input/output which is what most applications do all the time. And perl 6 is practically a completely different language. I wouldn't count that. What is interesting about php7 is how much effort and how little complaining goes into porting the C extensions: that API has changed a lot and the documentation is still spread all over wikis and blog posts. And yet there is a php7 port of many third party extensions already But I guess the huge performance improvements are a strong motivator even there

vpkaihla 11y ago

The reason for that is that python2=>3 fixed several fundamental problems. 5.6 => 7 is just a incremental upgrade, whatever the version numbering tells you. Most of the PHP problems are still there.

MAGZine 11y ago
> The reason for that is that python2=>3 fixed several fundamental problems. 5.6 => 7 is just a incremental upgrade, whatever the version numbering tells you. Most of the PHP problems are still there. too bad for py3's fundamental problem: that it broke the interface so badly, people still don't use it. PHP7 has no such problem, and gets to add boatloads of new features (which will be immediately used/adopted) while deprecating old versions of the language.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- vpkaihla 11y ago
  You don't understand. To fix problems like python3 did, you have to break older code. Php7 did nothing like that, that's why the "porting" process was so light. But it also means it didn't fix any of the big things.
  - sunkencity 11y ago
    imho python3 fixed the issue in the wrong way, so it will never have a great amount of users: down the road the choice will be upgrade to python3 or choose a more modern programming language like go with immense performance boost. I think people will choose to leave python.
    - vpkaihla 11y ago
      So python will be better in version 3 and people will move to better languages? Sounds like a win-win to me.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > Php7 did nothing like that, that's why the "porting" process was so light. This is nonsense, PHP 7 contains a long list of backwards-compatibility breaks: http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.php http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.php If PHP 7.0 didn't break anything, it would have been called 5.7. The upgrade is easy simply because these breaks do not have as much of an impact as Python's did.
    - vpkaihla 11y ago
      No, it's not nonsense. The things you listed in there are incremental fixes, not fundamental. http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.type-juggling.php http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.type-juggling.php How would you fix this without breaking most PHP code out there? How would you fix ==, > and < behaviour without breaking most PHP code out there? How would you fix Unicode without breaking most PHP code out there? If PHP fixed things like this, it would be a decent programming language, but it would also break a lot of things. Kinda of like what python3 did, only that it didn't have to break quite so much, since python2 was already pretty decent.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
5 to 7 does fix some big problems, however. In particular, it is the first release with uniform syntax for variables (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/uniform_variable_syntax https://wiki.php.net/rfc/uniform_variable_syntax) and an AST-based compiler. It also replaces a lot of PHP-style errors with exceptions.

troels 11y ago

Well - have you considered what happened to PHP 6?

SannisDev 11y ago
Exaggerating, PHP6 development team did not find a consensus on the choice of UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 :-D

tangue 11y ago

Python 2 => 3 is more like php4 => php5 transition; it breaks some stuff and there's no no real motivation for people to use the new version. Perl is in his own league.

spdionis 11y ago

I am developing all my new php applications on php7, and so does everyone i know. Just an anecdote.