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> PHP 8.2 is a major update of the PHP language. Major update, awesome. /s As someone who manages a network of 250+ WordPress websites - these PHP updates are

> PHP 8.2 is a major update of the PHP language. Major update, awesome. /s As someone who manages a network of 250+ WordPress websites - these PHP updates are killing me! As soon as I'm done helping clients upgrade/fix their incompatible themes/plugins and custom code, a new version is out! Even with great tools, the process for about 10% of my network is a nightmare. While I appreciate the work, it's not very satisfying and for many clients very frustrating to pay for something they know nothing about, just to "keep the lights on".

dncornholio 4y ago
You're doing something wrong. WordPress isn't PHP 8 ready yet. Keep that stuff running on 7.4 and you will have had no problems. Plugins and themes don't move as fast.. Also not a PHP problem but a WordPress problem. It's not a healthy eco-system.
- cies 4y ago
  > It's not a healthy eco-system. I'd argue that's true for all of PHP. Sure it got better, but compared to other langugaes it is still a mess.
  - notresidenter 4y ago
    Please provide arguments to support your claim.
  - dncornholio 4y ago
    Disagree, composer exists, namespaces exist, autoloading exists. Enough quality frameworks. I hope you can give some factual arguments why it's still a mess.
    - JodieBenitez 4y ago
      I think GP was not talking about PHP ecosystem in general but about Wordpress ecosystem in particular. And I largely support this claim.
  - esskay 4y ago
    None of this is on PHP the language. The roadmap is extremely clear for PHP. The problem is the likes of Wordpress having no oversight on their plugin directory. Really they should've stopped accepting new listings / updates for plugins that dont support the latest release. Wordpress has a lot to answer for here, but given the archaic and frankly idiotic way they operate they'll do nothing of the sort. PHP is very backwards friendly and with a strong and stable ecosystem built around composer theres no excuses for majorly used (and often very profitable) wordpress plugins lagging so far behind.
- Ciantic 4y ago
  WP is PHP 8 ready, but plugins aren't. Some hosts are dropping PHP 7.4 support in January, I know it's causing problems for those who haven't done good maintenance deals.
  - mobilio 4y ago
    Also some themes or theme builders aren't compatible too.
    - josefresco 4y ago
      Correct. Every decent theme and plugin publishes a handful of updates every year. Locking your WP site "in time" is not a viable option. If that's your strategy, just build a static HTML site.
      - dncornholio 4y ago
        Theme and plugin updates keep rolling in.. I'm only locking the PHP version until all themes and plugins the site uses are compatible with 8. A hosting provider that forces people to PHP 8 is not a good hosting platform for WordPress.
  - josefresco 4y ago
    > Some hosts are dropping PHP 7.4 support in January Ding ding ding! This guys WordPresses. Even outside my network which is in decent shape, I have clients scrambling because they've ignored PHP updates for 2+ years. Sometimes burying your head in the sand is not the best strategy.
hacym 4y ago
Does Wordpress require the latest version of PHP? Is there not an LTS?
- adlpz 4y ago
  Let me put it this way: there are major plugins with millions of installs that do not support PHP 8.0. I even host a few installs on the latest 7.x version. I don't understand where this update hysteria comes from. PHP 8.1 security support ends in Nov 2024.
  - josefresco 4y ago
    Everyone lags behind but the pace in the last 2 years has quickened. Even if you lag (post 5x years), eventually you have to match the cadence.
cies 4y ago
I hope you charge for it. That said there are languages where very little backward incompatible changes are made. Java comes to mind. Also: putting each client in a sandbox (VM, VPS, etc) can help you to keep some clients on the old versions, and/or do PHP interpreter migrations on your own timeline.
- josefresco 4y ago
  > I hope you charge for it. I do and appreciate the job security but I respect my clients (small biz owners) and it's just not satisfying and for the 10% that have issues, costly.
  - lzaaz 4y ago
    Don't update php and freeze the files and the database so they can't be hacked.
    - xtanx 4y ago
      Sure, but what stops them from modifying the database?
- naranha 4y ago
  > Java comes to mind. Java used to be like that, but the migration to the module system has been very rocky for me personally when revisiting older projects.
adlpz 4y ago
Older versions of PHP are supported with security fixes for a while. There's no need to upgrade to 8.2 right now, at all.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  The 7 series is 'done' with security updates as of now. https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php So there's some argument to be made to be in the 8.x series. It's probably not something you should be losing sleep over just yet, but at least have it on your roadmap to address in the coming months.
  - mgbmtl 4y ago
    There are nice improvements that make it worth it to upgrade, but yeah, and you can also just use a Linux distribution that provides support for older versions of PHP (such as Debian stable or the Sury packages). We upgrade our clients in waves, so sites in dev get the latest PHP, which lets up contribute to upstream PHP projects to fix issues, and by the time it's merged upstream, we can update our older clients without any worries.
- martin_a 4y ago
  Sadly, there is, kind of. Shared webhosters (speaking for Germany) have started to disable support for PHP 7.x as there are no security patches anymore. That made it necessary to upgrade lots of WordPress pages, especially older ones had some quirks in themes that broke with PHP 8. I've updated around 25 sites for an old friend (she's more into the design/content part, not the dev part) and made good money with that. "Stupid" work nevertheless, would've preferred to do something better than run a PHP 8 linter and see where it breaks...
  - josefresco 4y ago
    > I've updated around 25 sites for an old friend (she's more into the design/content part, not the dev part) and made good money with that. "Stupid" work nevertheless, would've preferred to do something better than run a PHP 8 linter and see where it breaks Exactly. It's work for our engineers but not something to get excited about. Plus you need to explain to the client why they're paying $1000 for something called "PHP" which they have no concept of.
tiffanyh 4y ago
Why do you feel compelled to update to every point release? How do you deal with Nginx/Apache updates given they release more frequently than PHP? You can always host at a managed hosting provider who will take care of this for you.
- josefresco 4y ago
  > Why do you feel compelled to update to every point release? I don't. We just finished upgrades from 7.4 to 8.0. PHP 8 was release November 26, 2020 - two years ago! > How do you deal with Nginx/Apache updates given they release more frequently than PHP? My managed host deals with that. > You can always host at a managed hosting provider who will take care of this for you. I have a "managed" host and none of them will make your code compatible. It requires a software engineer and lots of unglamorous work.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > and lots of unglamorous work. This. The PHP developers are trying to turn PHP into a decent, fairly modern language. This has involved quite a lot of breaking changes in the last few years, and upgrading website code just so it works with the latest version (i.e. no actual improvements) isn't appealing work.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > How do you deal with Nginx/Apache updates given they release more frequently than PHP? Can't speak for Nginx, but Apache updates very rarely screw with syntax, and those are always major releases. And for Apache, "syntax" just means config files. PHP screws with syntax frequently, and often on point releases. And PHP is a programming language; syntax is the whole point of PHP.
debesyla 4y ago
Is it really that bad to use older version of PHP for longer? The plugin/theme developers usually develop with older versions of PHP in mind, lot's of plugins still work even with 5.x versions... For my WP sites I just stick with "two major versions behind" workflow and I don't encounter many problems. Am I doing it wrong?
- adlpz 4y ago
  You are doing it right. 7.4 just ended its security support so you might argue that you should be at least on 8.0 just in case a bug is found and not backported. Truth is: it's not likely. But in any case theres no need whatsoever to use the latest version and even less when you are using WordPress which is notoriously bad at keeping up with PHP releases.
  - radiojasper 4y ago
    When I tried updating my network of 200+ WordPress websites to 8.0, more than 40 websites broke directly. It's a bit better on 8.1 but in no way is WordPress ready for 8.x at this point. PHP 8 is in "beta support" currently, but that's just Core. A lot of plugin developers are lightyears behind it seems: https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/php-compatibility-and-wordpress-versions/ https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/php-comp...
    - josefresco 4y ago
      > It's a bit better on 8.1 but in no way is WordPress ready for 8.x at this point. WP Core is absolutely compatible. Its the themes, plugins and custom code (usually in functions.php) that isn't.
      - radiojasper 4y ago
        I actually said that! A base install runs fine on 8.1, but plugin developers are lightyears behind it seems. > but that's just Core. A lot of plugin developers are lightyears behind it seems.
invalidusernam3 4y ago
Similar boat for me, I manage a few hundred Drupal sites and I spend a lot of my time on Drupal updates and PHP updates. Just finished the upgrade to PHP 8.1, and now I know the start of my year will be PHP 8.2 and Drupal 10 upgrades.
- josefresco 4y ago
  I feel your pain cousin Drupal!
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  I still have an anxiety response just seeing the word Drupal.
pacifika 4y ago
Don’t worry WordPress doesn’t support 8.2
- vntok 4y ago
  How do you mean? The meta ticket (https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56009#comment:27 https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56009#comment:27) is pretty clear that all unit tests are passing, the only issues left being deprecation notices, not errors. Have you tried it and found the core failed somewhere?
naranha 4y ago
Yeah I wish the focus was more on backwards compatibility at this point. Most PHP codebases are very old.
acomjean 4y ago
I think we need a LTS (long term support) version of PHP. One of the great things about it was the non-breaking upgrades for so many years. I mean no version of php7 is supported? https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php I know the web needs constant maintenance, but I wish it wasn't so much. PHP has been pretty good about not breaking changes, but I've noticed a few.. PHP is my goto. Its pretty great. It enabled a startup I was part of to get off the ground.
- nerdbert 4y ago
  Distributions like Debian maintain their own LTS versions of PHP for many more years than the PHP people themselves, backporting applicable security fixes as necessary.
  - trog 4y ago
    I run a lot of WP sites on Debian for exactly this reason. Every now and then there's a feature that's unavailable though because someone's written something (usually in a plugin) for a bleeding edge version of PHP. I think official LTS for PHP would still help, if only to drive a few of the larger developers to target those versions to ensure maximum ease of deployment and maintenance.
jacquesm 4y ago
Well, essentially you are getting paid because of that. So if it all went smoothly you'd be out of a job.
- josefresco 4y ago
  This work represented about 1-2% of our revenue this past year. While not insignificant, we'd certainly have plenty of work even if these upgrades went perfectly.

dncornholio 4y ago

You're doing something wrong. WordPress isn't PHP 8 ready yet. Keep that stuff running on 7.4 and you will have had no problems. Plugins and themes don't move as fast.. Also not a PHP problem but a WordPress problem. It's not a healthy eco-system.

cies 4y ago
> It's not a healthy eco-system. I'd argue that's true for all of PHP. Sure it got better, but compared to other langugaes it is still a mess.
- notresidenter 4y ago
  Please provide arguments to support your claim.
- dncornholio 4y ago
  Disagree, composer exists, namespaces exist, autoloading exists. Enough quality frameworks. I hope you can give some factual arguments why it's still a mess.
  - JodieBenitez 4y ago
    I think GP was not talking about PHP ecosystem in general but about Wordpress ecosystem in particular. And I largely support this claim.
- esskay 4y ago
  None of this is on PHP the language. The roadmap is extremely clear for PHP. The problem is the likes of Wordpress having no oversight on their plugin directory. Really they should've stopped accepting new listings / updates for plugins that dont support the latest release. Wordpress has a lot to answer for here, but given the archaic and frankly idiotic way they operate they'll do nothing of the sort. PHP is very backwards friendly and with a strong and stable ecosystem built around composer theres no excuses for majorly used (and often very profitable) wordpress plugins lagging so far behind.
Ciantic 4y ago
WP is PHP 8 ready, but plugins aren't. Some hosts are dropping PHP 7.4 support in January, I know it's causing problems for those who haven't done good maintenance deals.
- mobilio 4y ago
  Also some themes or theme builders aren't compatible too.
  - josefresco 4y ago
    Correct. Every decent theme and plugin publishes a handful of updates every year. Locking your WP site "in time" is not a viable option. If that's your strategy, just build a static HTML site.
    - dncornholio 4y ago
      Theme and plugin updates keep rolling in.. I'm only locking the PHP version until all themes and plugins the site uses are compatible with 8. A hosting provider that forces people to PHP 8 is not a good hosting platform for WordPress.
- josefresco 4y ago
  > Some hosts are dropping PHP 7.4 support in January Ding ding ding! This guys WordPresses. Even outside my network which is in decent shape, I have clients scrambling because they've ignored PHP updates for 2+ years. Sometimes burying your head in the sand is not the best strategy.

hacym 4y ago

Does Wordpress require the latest version of PHP? Is there not an LTS?

adlpz 4y ago
Let me put it this way: there are major plugins with millions of installs that do not support PHP 8.0. I even host a few installs on the latest 7.x version. I don't understand where this update hysteria comes from. PHP 8.1 security support ends in Nov 2024.
- josefresco 4y ago
  Everyone lags behind but the pace in the last 2 years has quickened. Even if you lag (post 5x years), eventually you have to match the cadence.

cies 4y ago

I hope you charge for it. That said there are languages where very little backward incompatible changes are made. Java comes to mind. Also: putting each client in a sandbox (VM, VPS, etc) can help you to keep some clients on the old versions, and/or do PHP interpreter migrations on your own timeline.

josefresco 4y ago
> I hope you charge for it. I do and appreciate the job security but I respect my clients (small biz owners) and it's just not satisfying and for the 10% that have issues, costly.
- lzaaz 4y ago
  Don't update php and freeze the files and the database so they can't be hacked.
  - xtanx 4y ago
    Sure, but what stops them from modifying the database?
naranha 4y ago
> Java comes to mind. Java used to be like that, but the migration to the module system has been very rocky for me personally when revisiting older projects.

adlpz 4y ago

Older versions of PHP are supported with security fixes for a while. There's no need to upgrade to 8.2 right now, at all.

mgkimsal 4y ago
The 7 series is 'done' with security updates as of now. https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php So there's some argument to be made to be in the 8.x series. It's probably not something you should be losing sleep over just yet, but at least have it on your roadmap to address in the coming months.
- mgbmtl 4y ago
  There are nice improvements that make it worth it to upgrade, but yeah, and you can also just use a Linux distribution that provides support for older versions of PHP (such as Debian stable or the Sury packages). We upgrade our clients in waves, so sites in dev get the latest PHP, which lets up contribute to upstream PHP projects to fix issues, and by the time it's merged upstream, we can update our older clients without any worries.
martin_a 4y ago
Sadly, there is, kind of. Shared webhosters (speaking for Germany) have started to disable support for PHP 7.x as there are no security patches anymore. That made it necessary to upgrade lots of WordPress pages, especially older ones had some quirks in themes that broke with PHP 8. I've updated around 25 sites for an old friend (she's more into the design/content part, not the dev part) and made good money with that. "Stupid" work nevertheless, would've preferred to do something better than run a PHP 8 linter and see where it breaks...
- josefresco 4y ago
  > I've updated around 25 sites for an old friend (she's more into the design/content part, not the dev part) and made good money with that. "Stupid" work nevertheless, would've preferred to do something better than run a PHP 8 linter and see where it breaks Exactly. It's work for our engineers but not something to get excited about. Plus you need to explain to the client why they're paying $1000 for something called "PHP" which they have no concept of.

tiffanyh 4y ago

Why do you feel compelled to update to every point release? How do you deal with Nginx/Apache updates given they release more frequently than PHP? You can always host at a managed hosting provider who will take care of this for you.

josefresco 4y ago
> Why do you feel compelled to update to every point release? I don't. We just finished upgrades from 7.4 to 8.0. PHP 8 was release November 26, 2020 - two years ago! > How do you deal with Nginx/Apache updates given they release more frequently than PHP? My managed host deals with that. > You can always host at a managed hosting provider who will take care of this for you. I have a "managed" host and none of them will make your code compatible. It requires a software engineer and lots of unglamorous work.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > and lots of unglamorous work. This. The PHP developers are trying to turn PHP into a decent, fairly modern language. This has involved quite a lot of breaking changes in the last few years, and upgrading website code just so it works with the latest version (i.e. no actual improvements) isn't appealing work.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> How do you deal with Nginx/Apache updates given they release more frequently than PHP? Can't speak for Nginx, but Apache updates very rarely screw with syntax, and those are always major releases. And for Apache, "syntax" just means config files. PHP screws with syntax frequently, and often on point releases. And PHP is a programming language; syntax is the whole point of PHP.

debesyla 4y ago

Is it really that bad to use older version of PHP for longer? The plugin/theme developers usually develop with older versions of PHP in mind, lot's of plugins still work even with 5.x versions... For my WP sites I just stick with "two major versions behind" workflow and I don't encounter many problems. Am I doing it wrong?

adlpz 4y ago
You are doing it right. 7.4 just ended its security support so you might argue that you should be at least on 8.0 just in case a bug is found and not backported. Truth is: it's not likely. But in any case theres no need whatsoever to use the latest version and even less when you are using WordPress which is notoriously bad at keeping up with PHP releases.
- radiojasper 4y ago
  When I tried updating my network of 200+ WordPress websites to 8.0, more than 40 websites broke directly. It's a bit better on 8.1 but in no way is WordPress ready for 8.x at this point. PHP 8 is in "beta support" currently, but that's just Core. A lot of plugin developers are lightyears behind it seems: https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/php-compatibility-and-wordpress-versions/ https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/php-comp...
  - josefresco 4y ago
    > It's a bit better on 8.1 but in no way is WordPress ready for 8.x at this point. WP Core is absolutely compatible. Its the themes, plugins and custom code (usually in functions.php) that isn't.
    - radiojasper 4y ago
      I actually said that! A base install runs fine on 8.1, but plugin developers are lightyears behind it seems. > but that's just Core. A lot of plugin developers are lightyears behind it seems.

invalidusernam3 4y ago

Similar boat for me, I manage a few hundred Drupal sites and I spend a lot of my time on Drupal updates and PHP updates. Just finished the upgrade to PHP 8.1, and now I know the start of my year will be PHP 8.2 and Drupal 10 upgrades.

josefresco 4y ago
I feel your pain cousin Drupal!
sirsinsalot 4y ago
I still have an anxiety response just seeing the word Drupal.

pacifika 4y ago

Don’t worry WordPress doesn’t support 8.2

vntok 4y ago
How do you mean? The meta ticket (https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56009#comment:27 https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56009#comment:27) is pretty clear that all unit tests are passing, the only issues left being deprecation notices, not errors. Have you tried it and found the core failed somewhere?

naranha 4y ago

Yeah I wish the focus was more on backwards compatibility at this point. Most PHP codebases are very old.

acomjean 4y ago

I think we need a LTS (long term support) version of PHP. One of the great things about it was the non-breaking upgrades for so many years. I mean no version of php7 is supported? https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php I know the web needs constant maintenance, but I wish it wasn't so much. PHP has been pretty good about not breaking changes, but I've noticed a few.. PHP is my goto. Its pretty great. It enabled a startup I was part of to get off the ground.

nerdbert 4y ago
Distributions like Debian maintain their own LTS versions of PHP for many more years than the PHP people themselves, backporting applicable security fixes as necessary.
- trog 4y ago
  I run a lot of WP sites on Debian for exactly this reason. Every now and then there's a feature that's unavailable though because someone's written something (usually in a plugin) for a bleeding edge version of PHP. I think official LTS for PHP would still help, if only to drive a few of the larger developers to target those versions to ensure maximum ease of deployment and maintenance.

jacquesm 4y ago

Well, essentially you are getting paid because of that. So if it all went smoothly you'd be out of a job.

josefresco 4y ago
This work represented about 1-2% of our revenue this past year. While not insignificant, we'd certainly have plenty of work even if these upgrades went perfectly.