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> The first and the most probable trend is the complete dominance of PHP 7.x in all aspects of PHP development. I don't see how this conclusion follows from an

> The first and the most probable trend is the complete dominance of PHP 7.x in all aspects of PHP development. I don't see how this conclusion follows from anything in the article. As long as big players (specifically WordPress) hold down minimum version requirements, and shared hosting providers decline to upgrade, a very large percentage of PHP will still be run in pre-7.0 environments. The professional PHP types will go to 7.0, but people developing commercially for WordPress are kind of stuck. And people developing professionally for WordPress are ~25% of the PHP ecosystem, if I had to guess. As much as it pains me, I wouldn't be surprised to see it take until 2019 or 2020 for PHP7 to truly displace PHP 5.x. It took PHP 4 that long to disappear.

memco 10y ago
I agree that it will take a while to see 5.x disappear, but hopefully not as long. I know there are many hosting companies that are lagging behind the times, but it should move faster since the market affords easier upgrade paths. The shared host that I have been using for years has had the option to migrate easily from 5.x to newer releases and now has 7 available. They took years to support reasonable versions of 5, but now it's a two-click process to switch versions and you can even downgrade. I am shocked that there are still hosts who haven't implemented easier PHP upgrade options and why people would continue to pay them for service when for the same price they could get better service. Old habits, lock-in or neglect will slow down PHP 7 adoption, not access or financial burden.