IPB 3.0 Bold or not?

[Jaggi]

Just summit that i've been thinking about lately as i make my final steps into the PHP5 relm as PHP4 is to be made obsolete very soon with support for it being discontinued i thought it might be worth having this open to discussion...

I do know IPB 3.0 is quite a long way off but we all expect to see something about it soon enuff with other projects being wrapped up but taking into the huge benifits in php5 is ips gonna take the bold step and move to 100% php5 framework in ipb 3.0 or do you think php4 will still be supported.

if i'm honest i think php4 was great when it was about but most of the hosts out there have updated to php5 by now and even more if not all will have by the time ipb 3.0 is around and given the huge benifits in security and speed i do actually thing ipb 3.0 should be made for php5 and php4 should no longer be a consideration.

what does everyone else think?

P.S. if you read i know u used php5 alot lately bfarber so your input is welcome :P.

[bfarber]

It is something we are discussing, but haven't made a final decision on yet. :)

[kirov]

i don't think its a good idea, i think IPB should suport php4 and php5, because some hosts don't want to upgrade yet theyre php version

[Lewis P]

Then they're idiots. I am paying over double my cash monthly to be hosted on a host with PHP5

[Tony]

i don't think its a good idea, i think IPB should suport php4 and php5, because some hosts don't want to upgrade yet theyre php version

When there will be no support for PHP 4, they will need to upgrade to PHP 5 (or all customers will search for other hosts).And back to the topic subject, WoltLab Burning Board 3 is the first bulletin board built exclusively for PHP 5, and it's look quite cool (the design it's a little bit gay, but it's colorful). :)

Whatever, we don't talk about Romanian hosts. :whistle:

[bfarber]

Personally, I'm definitely not against it. As a company, however, IPS has to weigh the customers and what software the customers have (4 vs 5). It's definitely an internal discussion right now though.

[Kfir]

I strongly agree with it.
PHP 4 support is drooping on the the end of this year, more 9 days, and since of this I think everyone is gonna move to version 5.

[Guest]

I'd certainly be looking to move to PHP5 if it was my decision, after all, PHP4 will be end-of-life at the end of this year. If you've only barely started working on IPB3, it's going to be quite a while before release, by which time i'd expect any host worth their salt would be using PHP5.

[Quick]

In my opinion PHP 4 support on IPB should remain. Unless migrating to an exclusive PHP 5 IPB would create a performance boost since PHP 5 is reaching end of life support.

[uberjon]

In my opinion PHP 4 support on IPB should remain. Unless migrating to an exclusive PHP 5 IPB would create a performance boost since PHP 5 is reaching end of life support.

dont you mean php4 is reaching EOF?

also. i think it would be more "slip streamed" so to speak. if php4 was removed from the core.. not only should php5 be faster. but not having to have it coded for both would mean smaller file sizes. and it should perform better. with less security risks..

that show i see it.

i think IPB should fully discontinue support for php4 as it is getting to old. it will be causing more grief then worth..

[Louis M.]

But a number of corporations may still be using php4 and may not be willing to update to php5 yet.

[uberjon]

But a number of corporations may still be using php4 and may not be willing to update to php5 yet.

from what i understand. PHP intends to "EOF" php4. no support/upgrades/patches/bugfixes this is coming up fast.. they wont have much choice.. so there is no point in IPS "bloating" the entire 3.0 series with php4 support.. (because IPB 4 wont come around for probably at least a year after PHP4 is "taken off of the web" basically..)

PHP 4 end of life announcement

[13-Jul-2007]

The PHP development team hereby announces that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. We will continue to make critical security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. Please use the rest of this year to make your application suitable to run on PHP 5.

For documentation on migration for PHP 4 to PHP 5, we would like to point you to our migration guide. There is additional information available in the PHP 5.0 to PHP 5.1 and PHP 5.1 to PHP 5.2 migration guides as well.

quoted from www.php.net

so "if" IPB 3.0 is released in say.. march.. and a security hole is found in php4 in sept it will not be fixed.. (aka IPB would be at risk..)

so. we would end up waiting until the new main version (IPB 4) before we could ditch all php4 code.. and that could be a while....

to me.. this is like. going out and buying a dx10.1 card for AGP... the last nail has been put in the coffin.. just needs lowered to "rest in peace" and some people just want to get out the crowbar.. point is. "its dying tech.."

[Louis M.]

LOL AGP. They still make those antiques?

PHP4 is a dieing horse and definatly needs to be put to pasture. I just know that some companies, and mostly gov't agencies don't like to make changes and they may see php4-5 as a a huge change they don't wnat to make right now. I say go for php5 all the way.

[.Ryan]

The only problem I could see is that clients that are listed on the homepage of the site would be the problem. If they haven't upgraded to PHP I could see IPS not moving to PHP5 only so they can hold those clients, any company would do that.

I don't see why anybody would pay double to be hosted with PHP5? Every script I use works with PHP5, don't have any problems with it and I am slowly learing PHP ordered a book in the mail and using some online resources. I personally think it would be very foolish to skip the oppurtunity to start with PHP5. You could possibly develop a entire new series of the board only compadable ith PHP5 and keep the 2 series PHP4 compadible only with security updates, until people want to upgrade to 3 with PHP5 only.

If nobody in the industry wants to upgrade then how is the PHP development ever going to move forward? I know there is a deadline sometime for a GoPHP5 movement and hopefully everyone starts to ditch the 4 version and if your still running it, then upgrade. All three of the hosts I am on are running the latest PHP5, Appache, SQL - its not complicated and they don't charge for it <_<

[Digi]

I'd expect that you won't see full adoption of php 5 until the security fix deadline. But that depends purely on how they decide "case-by-case" whether to fix it. If smart, they'd say it is fixed in php 5, upgrade. If it isn't fixed in 5, then patch both. If they follow that, then php5 adoption will happen much faster :)

Either way, there is little reason not to begin a php5 only branch while maintaining the php4/5 merge for now. And, in all likelihood, when IPB 3 comes out, there would be very few folks still on php4, so there is no reason NOT to start developing IPB 3 (and any future major releases of IPS products) under strict php5 development. So I'm not sure what there is to discuss (other than where the fund are coming from :P), unless you want to follow suit with vB and use old tech (and poorly performing procedural, in IPB's cause "sudo-oop") forever :P

[spicy brains]

In the long term view: we have been using IPB2 since 2004. If a similar development cycle (more than four years) will happen for IPB3, then it will be past 2012 by the time IPB4 is being planned. By that point in time, PHP4 will be 4 years obsolete, PHP5 will be nearing its life cycle.

Changing the core from 4/5 to just 5 is a pretty major change to be a sub-version (e.g., 3.1, 3.2), though mediawiki did just that (actually, as I recall, they went from 1.0.6 to 1.0.11 from having 4/5 support to only 5), so it's not unheard of.

Personally, I support being exclusively 5. Right now, the only software that we run that has a PHP4 core are IPB and censura (which requires at least PHP 5.1 in their next version, anticipated to go live in the next two months).

The development cycle for IPB3, if you're still talking about these changes, is long enough that the majority of hosts AND internal/external corporate servers will have switched to PHP 5.

Incidentally, I used to work in IT in a few Fortune 100 corporations (my forum is a hobby). I know that the IT dept where I work begrudgingly switched to PHP 5 last week for their web-based applications. According to my old coworkers, all of my old departments had either switched or were in the transition process. Honestly, any IT department of a major corporation worth their salt will be actively working on transitioning to PHP5 since PHP has announced the end of support for 4. It's simple risk management: why take the risk for a security hole in an unsupported, obsolete version when there's a supported version where 90%+ of the code base will work without intervention? Sure, they may need to put a few hundred hours of work in the transition, but better than being hacked.

[Coastie]

I would like to see the move from php4 to php5, and with the time saved from making the core backwards compatible, put those resources into making MySQL 4/5 specific drivers that can take advantage of newer sql servers.

[W13]

I don't mind backwards support for PHP4 as long as it doesn't sacrifice resource-usage/speed for PHP5ers.

[MindTooth]

I am all for PHP5 support only. By this we can make more of the hosting providers upgrade there servers..

Birger :)

[Cold Fire]

If PHP 4 is obsolete then I think that they should user PHP 5 because most people should have it then but until then I think it should be made for PHP 4 and 5.

[The Old Man]

I have a great webhost but they are still using PHP4. They say too many of their users scripts would be broken if they went to PHP5.

[stoo2000]

I have a great webhost but they are still using PHP4. They say too many of their users scripts would be broken if they went to PHP5.

We migrated our servers to PHP5 probably about a year ago now, and we've not had a single customer report any issues. But on the plus side you can now run PHP4 & 5 (at the same time) on cPanel.

[Stallyon]

phpBB 3.2.x will be going PHP 5.x ... Project codenamed phpBB "Ascraeus".

PHP 4.x is at EOL and any hosts not upgrading within the next 6 months will probably lose clients.

[henke37]

There is the gophp5.com project. PhpMyAdmin, the big name product is a member.
They passed the deadline for php 4 support last month. So, the member projects do no longer support php 4.

[TheSonic]

I would also like a PHP5-only-Version, so IPS can use all the new features in PHP5 (and 3.0 will not be released tomorrow)

I know, it's not easy, but i also upgraded all servers to PHP5, because some devs starting announcing support for PHP5 only, other ones announcing the step in the future, so i thought i can not "runaway" and have to do it in the near future - so i have done it ASAP :D

All PHP4-Scripts working well on my installations on PHP5.