Are you still using PHP 5.x? Why?

Im sure to jump to php 7.4 whenever I move to XF2. Until then I may need to stick to php 7.3.x
 
There's an interesting video here going over the last 25 years of PHP and how it's progressed, presented recently in Verona by the creator of PHP Rasmus Lerdorf.

PHP has been around for almost as long as the Web. 25 years! Join me for a fun look at the highlights (and lowlights) of this crazy trip. But I will also be trying to convince you to upgrade your PHP version. The performance alone should be enough, if not, I have a few other tricks up my sleeve to try to win you over. Performance optimization, static analysis, zero-cost profiling, dead code elimination and escape analysis are just some of the concepts that will be covered.


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Jump to 26mins (timestamp linked below) to see his despair when asking a room full of PHP developers if anyone is still on PHP5 😂😂

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If your moving from 7.1/7.2 to 7.3, you code should be about 5-10% faster. If it's more than that you probably don't want to brag about it due to this :D

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These graphs help demonstrate just how big of an improvement in latency and requests per second that can be echieve with moving to 7.x

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Memory usage has shrunk a fair bit

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I'm starting to get the impression this guy knows what he's talking about, y'all should probably listen to his advice here.

He goes on this clip to stress how it's actually irresponsible to be running code this old if you're handling customer data.

Everyone should be on 7.1 or above. 7.0 is 4.5 years old, no longer supported and will no longer be receiving security fixes.

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You heard the man. Get your upgrade on.
 
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Current PHP usage is showing that PHP 5.x now accounts for fewer than 25% of installs.

At this moment in time, the plan is to move to a minimum of PHP 7.0 from XF 2.2 onwards.

So if you're still running PHP 5.6, then when you upgrade to XF 2.1.3, you will see a new message. Start planning to upgrade now!

View attachment 206075

Is it worth upping that minimum to 7.1 based on what Rasmus says in the clip above? Seeing as 7.0 is already EOL and will no longer be receving security fixes? If people are going to make the effort to make the jump, might as well jump to a version that they can feel comfortable staying on for a while if the jump requires a lot of work.

7.1 will stop receiving security fixes in 4 months.
 
Bear in mind we only stopped supporting PHP 5.4/5.5 earlier this year, the development status of a given PHP version isn't our primary concern. Changes to the minimum requirements will mostly be driven by our requirements in terms of developing and maintaining the code and the overall benefit to customers in terms of performance. The security aspect should absolutely be a concern for the end user and their hosts, though.

PHP 7.0 will bring us various code features we've wanted to use for a while plus give the largest performance increase for those upgrading from PHP 5.x. We'll take it one step at a time.

Actually it might be possible that turning our back on PHP 5.6 already is a bad idea - it's still the second-most popular PHP version amongst our customers. That's nearly 25% of installs. PHP 7.0 would be another 12%. 25% is a lot... nearly 40% may cause problems. Or it may not. This will be a good test to see whether the best way to drive people to stay updated is to increase our minimum requirements or if it will just negatively impact adoption.
 
Yeah, that is a lot.

I would potentially reach out via an informative email including some of the info from this thread on the benefits of upgrading, what the current PHP lifecycle looks like, and a survey monkey form or similar to gather some feedback from those customers. They could pass that info onto their hosts or server admins to see what other reasons might be standing in their way or if it's just them being uninformed and needing an authoritative nudge to make the effort to seriously investigate making the jump.
 
or if it's just them being uninformed and needing an authoritative nudge to make the effort to seriously investigate making the jump.
I think this would be a vast majority of those users on older PHP versions. And in most cases it's likely going to be a simple hosting panel switch to a new version. A couple of guides for latest version of Plesk/WHM and/or an "ask your host" for those users who rely on them for the "technical stuff". Another factor is that they don't necessarily have to update. If a PHP min version change to say 7.2 comes with 2.2 then they could stay on 2.1.x.
 
PHP 7.0 will bring us various code features we've wanted to use for a while plus give the largest performance increase for those upgrading from PHP 5.x. We'll take it one step at a time.

PHP 7.1 will bring in support for more usable return type declarations since 7.0 doesn't support nullable return types ;)
 
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:whistle:
Nothing to see here ... move along.



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:cool:
 
For the avoidance of doubt, what I said in my last post isn't new information, and since XF 2.1.3 we've been displaying a warning to customers who are still using PHP 5.6:
Current PHP usage is showing that PHP 5.x now accounts for fewer than 25% of installs.

At this moment in time, the plan is to move to a minimum of PHP 7.0 from XF 2.2 onwards.

So if you're still running PHP 5.6, then when you upgrade to XF 2.1.3, you will see a new message. Start planning to upgrade now!

View attachment 206075
 
I dropped support for 5.6, and it wasn't easy to let that version go (as I thought it was one of the best PHP versions made). But it was/is time to put it to rest.
 
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