On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Zeev Suraski <z...@zend.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure how many people you've spoken to and what their profile is, > but reality shows a very different picture: > > 481004 PHP/5.2.17 > 280342 PHP/5.3.8 > 271156 PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny16 > 146342 PHP/5.2.9 > 133818 PHP/5.2.6 > 125550 PHP/5.3.10 > 109513 PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny13 > 106320 PHP/5.2.5 > 102412 PHP/5.2.14 > 81221 PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny9 > These are the top-10 most popular PHP 5.x versions out there. PHP 5.4.x, > in case you're wondering, shows up on the 44th place, with a bit over 20K > deployments worldwide (5.4.11). > With yearly release cycles, we may make the lives of a few users more > enjoyable and with more rapid access to new features; But for the vast > majority, we're actually making lives worse: This is amazing how you take every single opportunity to bash the new release process, forgetting all pro arguments that have been brought in the last discussions. Let me write them down again in (hopefully) a more understandable way: 1. smaller and more frequent releases are easier to manage, from a core dev, QA, ISPs and applications/developers point of view. Those are our targets, not pepsi drinkers (read: consumers, they don't even care if php runs under the hood as long as the app runs) 2. 100% BC compatibility between x.y and x.y+1. This is what prevents many ISPs and other mass hosting to update to newer PHP versions. They don't test if it works or not, they simply don't update due (too expensive in support and revert) to our past bad job on keeping BC. 3. Judging the result of this process when only one release so far has been published is totally wrong. Instead of fighting it, what's about Zend talking about it to its so numerous customers? For a change. > 1. Framework & app developers can't really rely on new features anyway, > since nobody has those new versions installed. Just two years ago - > aiming for PHP 5.3 seemed like a bold move for ZF2 and Sf2 - and that's > even though PHP 5.3 brought some revolutionary features to the mix (which > 5.4 and 5.5 do not). We've also heard the Wordpress way of thinking, and > we can assume that it'd take many years before other apps feel comfortable > requiring a higher version than 5.3.x as a prerequisite. I have discussed with many WP devs (and the lead), they all agree that this process is a good thing and will help WP to move forward. It does not mean they will stop to support older versions but they will change the recommended versions. > 2. Users who want to stay secure have to constantly upgrade, since support > lifetimes have been trimmed down substantially (effectively, 3 years from > release; and considering nobody upgrades on to an x.y.0 version, it's > typically way less than that). We can already project that based on the > current frequency, people who install PHP 5.4 today will have less than > two years-worth of lifetime before they're forced to upgrade, or be left > unsupported. Again, 1st release done via through this process. Our users (not the consumers of our users products) have to see that we keep our word, about BC, quality etc. > 3. For the ecosystem in general, we're creating lots of fragmentation. No, we do not. 5.4 code runs under 5.5 smoothly. But we do not prevent newer versions of applications or modules to rely on 5.5 features. I am convinced that the update path will be faster in the next couple of years. The only missing part now is the communication about it. I have been communicating about it at all conferences I attended as speaker (talks, keynotes, etc.). I did not see any single negative comments about it, but only positive and very motivated feedback. While people also said that they will wait to see if we keep our words (as I said earlier). > All in all, I think the people who like the yearly release cycle are first > and foremost bleeding edge individual developers, and not people who are a > part of larger projects, or that actually have to worry about production > apps working uninterrupted. Having the pros of both sides is exactly why this process has been created. Having a release active for almost a decade is simply not possible. Let me say it again, stop arguing and begin to promote and explain it to your customers. That will be much more helpful than trying to fight it with all possible ways. Thanks. Cheers, -- Pierre @pierrejoye -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
