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Ask HN: Do you think PHP has improved with PHP 7?

7 points by jamesmp98 10y ago

whichdan 10y ago
For any curious former-PHP developers like myself: http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.new-features.php http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.new-features.php
kingofspain 10y ago
Can't speak to it myself just yet but I'll be moving a big web app from 5.6 to 7 in the new year and I'm hoping the good news I've heard so far holds true. I think there was a recent post from Slack(?) who mentioned some nice improvements.
- kkoppenhaver 10y ago
  DailyMotion[1] and Tumblr[2] have recently moved to PHP7. In addition, WordPress[3] is moving towards PHP7 as well. [1] http://engineering.dailymotion.com/php-7-deployment-at-dailymotion/ http://engineering.dailymotion.com/php-7-deployment-at-daily... [2] https://engineering.tumblr.com/post/152998126990/php-7-at-tumblr https://engineering.tumblr.com/post/152998126990/php-7-at-tu... [3] (from 2015) https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/09/10/wordpress-and-php7/ https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/09/10/wordpress-and-php...
debacle 10y ago
It still has many of the same problems old PHP has. More speed is always great, but speed wasn't PHP's major issue. It's still mired in an interpreter that has a lot of issues with more abstract/higher level stuff (though I will say that's getting far better), and a team that doesn't embrace BC breaks as much as they should (my opinion - the stdlib sucks). Extensions have always been PHP's strong point, but some newer stuff isn't as supported as well as it is in Python or Node because of PHP's lack of good async code. Overall it's a step in the right direction, but PHP needs more big changes.
LarryMade2 10y ago
As a programmer of many years, I don't jump onto new features till they are very commonplace, If I were to implement PHP7 right now I would be hard pressed to find hosting that supports it. I have PHP7 on my dev system, had to make some adjustments to get my 5.x code working again due to deprecation and syntax enforcement this included a couple lines in the TCPDF library I use. So for me the immediate impact of PHP7 will be the breaking of some legacy code. Then maybe, in a few years, the new features will be ubiquitous enough for me to implement.
rurban 10y ago
Speaking as former PHP developer, yes. Immensely. Very impressive feature set and performance. Now just the jit is missing.

7 points by jamesmp98 10y ago

For any curious former-PHP developers like myself: http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.new-features.php http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.new-features.php

kingofspain 10y ago

Can't speak to it myself just yet but I'll be moving a big web app from 5.6 to 7 in the new year and I'm hoping the good news I've heard so far holds true. I think there was a recent post from Slack(?) who mentioned some nice improvements.

kkoppenhaver 10y ago
DailyMotion[1] and Tumblr[2] have recently moved to PHP7. In addition, WordPress[3] is moving towards PHP7 as well. [1] http://engineering.dailymotion.com/php-7-deployment-at-dailymotion/ http://engineering.dailymotion.com/php-7-deployment-at-daily... [2] https://engineering.tumblr.com/post/152998126990/php-7-at-tumblr https://engineering.tumblr.com/post/152998126990/php-7-at-tu... [3] (from 2015) https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/09/10/wordpress-and-php7/ https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/09/10/wordpress-and-php...

debacle 10y ago

It still has many of the same problems old PHP has. More speed is always great, but speed wasn't PHP's major issue. It's still mired in an interpreter that has a lot of issues with more abstract/higher level stuff (though I will say that's getting far better), and a team that doesn't embrace BC breaks as much as they should (my opinion - the stdlib sucks). Extensions have always been PHP's strong point, but some newer stuff isn't as supported as well as it is in Python or Node because of PHP's lack of good async code. Overall it's a step in the right direction, but PHP needs more big changes.

LarryMade2 10y ago

As a programmer of many years, I don't jump onto new features till they are very commonplace, If I were to implement PHP7 right now I would be hard pressed to find hosting that supports it. I have PHP7 on my dev system, had to make some adjustments to get my 5.x code working again due to deprecation and syntax enforcement this included a couple lines in the TCPDF library I use. So for me the immediate impact of PHP7 will be the breaking of some legacy code. Then maybe, in a few years, the new features will be ubiquitous enough for me to implement.

rurban 10y ago

Speaking as former PHP developer, yes. Immensely. Very impressive feature set and performance. Now just the jit is missing.