Re: [PHP] how old is this version of PHP?

Far too much is made of BC breaks between PHP versions.  Well-behaved 
code should still be working a decade later.

The catch is that "well behaved" gets tighter each release.  For example:

$foo = "hello";
$bar = "world";
print $foo[$bar];

In PHP 5.3 and earlier, $bar is a string which makes no sense as an 
index of a string.  It needs to be an int.  PHP therefore casts that to 
an int, gets 0, and you get "h".

In PHP 5.4, that was acknowledged as a bug (which it always was), and 
now triggers a Warning.  Because, really, it always was a bug but just 
failed silently before.  Now it tells you so you can fix it.  It looks 
like a BC break, though, because "I get an error I didn't used to".

Other things are, eg, removing register_globals and magic_quotes, which 
have been deprecated for about 12 years and if you were still using them 
now then your code should break. :-)  They're a security hole.  But 
those are very few and far between.

--Larry Garfield

On 8/19/13 7:25 AM, Jeff Burcher wrote:
>
> I apologize if this is off topic, but this raises a question for me. Why
> can't new versions be backwards compatible? Is it really that difficult to
> accomplish? This has been a complaint of mine for years with Windows ever
> since we went from 95 to 98. I am an AS400 programmer and I have legacy
> programs written in RPG II, which died 20 years ago, and they still run fine
> on the newest version of AS400 or iSeries or Power System or whatever the
> heck it is called now. I also have PHP scripts that are many years old that
> work just fine the way they are, if a new version doesn't come along and
> make me have to reprogram for no reason just because it can't handle older
> code. Really, have Do loops and data calls changed that much over the years?
> I mean, all you do is set a condition, use a variable key field, and voila,
> data is pulled and processed, no big deal. Yeah, you can get fancy with it,
> but the core basics are still the same. I have been programming for over 35
> years and like to think that once a program is built it should run forever.
> Do we just accept that we have to rewrite every program we ever wrote every
> time a new version comes out? A little extreme, but you get my point.
> Comments? Suggestions?
>
> (I am also the kind of guy who thinks quality made hand tools from the 1800s
> are superior to many purchased today at Lowes or Home Depot.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeff Burcher - IT Dept
> Allred Metal Stamping Works
> "Making Metal Parts since 1946."
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Lester Caine [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 6:24 AM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [PHP] how old is this version of PHP?
>>
>> Larry Garfield wrote:
>>> 5.2.9 was released in February of 2009.  5.2 is completely retired and
>>> out of support.  5.3 is on security-only life-support.  5.4 is the
> legacy stable
>> release.
>>>
>>> Yes, 5.2.9 IS that old. :-)  Really, get a host that has made it into
>>> this decade.  (GoDaddy apparently doesn't meet that qualification.)
>>> You're doing clients a disservice by allowing them to run such an
>>> ancient and unsupported version.
>>
>> While the statements are correct, many users are not in a position to move
>> from their currently working systems to even 5.3 let alone 5.4. There is
> still a
>> lot of legacy code that unless a few more people step up and help bring it
>> forward for the many - non programming - users who are stuck with legacy
>> applications, they will remain requiring 5.2 to run. ISPs got caught out
> when
>> they arbitrarily moved accounts forward, and GoDaddy have even been
>> caught by that, so maintaining a LTS version of PHP5.2 is the lesser evil
> ...
>> Windows 2000 is supposed to be dead, but *I* still have sites reliant on
> it
>> because the code and hardware is unsupported in even XP. Saying
>> something is dead only works if there is an affordable way of moving
> forward
>> ;)
>>
>> --
>> Lester Caine - G8HFL
>> -----------------------------
>> Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
>> L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve -
>> http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop -
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>>
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>
>
>