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This is probably overly cynical of me, but I feel like a lot of what's keeping PHP alive at this point is inertia, and if some major version ahead required that
by apendleton 14y ago
This is probably overly cynical of me, but I feel like a lot of what's keeping PHP alive at this point is inertia, and if some major version ahead required that literally every standard library call be differently expressed (and by consequence, every PHP app essentially be rewritten), the case for continuing to use the language would get weaker than I think it already is. At that point, why not jump ship for something more powerful/performant/whatever?
- robryan 14y agoHow about developers? I know this isn't a problem for the lastest hot startup but business would have teams of people that are well versed in PHP. Sure they probably could change languages for a new project, for a new app to join a group of PHP apps it makes a lot of sense to keep the same language. Personally I am unsure who drives contributions these days, is it individuals/ hobbyists/ small companies or is it being driven by large companies with large existing PHP codebases?
- kijin 14y agoLarge code bases are rarely rewritten from scratch. They evolve over many years, and over time, old code gets replaced with new code, piece by piece. If a language evolves over a similarly long time span (10 years or more), and new features are adopted gradually, I don't see why a backward-incompatible change would require anything more than the usual amount of change when the last of the old code is retired. Call it inertia if you want, but this looks to me to be a good thing if you have a large code base to maintain.