On 21 August 2014 08:30, Derick Rethans <der...@php.net> wrote: > Can I please urge people to not take Backwards Compatibility issues so > lightly. Please think really careful when you suggest to break Backwards > Compatibility, it should only be considered if there is a real and > important reason to do so. Changing binary comparison is not one of > those, changing behaviour for everybody regarding ``<<`` and ``>>`` is > not one of those, and subtle changes to what syntax means is certainly > not one of them. > > **Don't be Evil**
+1 on everything Derick said. I want to make one more point: if there's just one thing we learn from other languages that have made BC-breaking, major version transitions, it should be that library and framework authors will ultimately have to support both versions in the same code base. Python tried using tooling such as 2to3 to help manage the transition, but in the end the only way Python 3 has gotten any traction is libraries supporting both, which effectively means that library authors can only write the subset of Python that's supported by 2 and 3. Every time we break BC — in either of the ways Derick said — we narrow the subset of PHP 5 and PHP 7 that's available to people writing PHP code that has to work on both. If we narrow it too far, it'll be too unexpressive, or too hard to use, or just plain won't do something that they'll need, and PHP 7 will risk becoming this decade's Perl 6: the cautionary tale for what happens when you burn all the boats. PHP 7 is an opportunity. It needs to be one that we embrace, and take advantage of, but most importantly one that is evolutionary and allows our user base to come with us. Adam -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
