SilverStripe 4 to drop support for PHP 5.3? Please voice any objections by 7 August.

[Sam Minnée]

Hi everyone,

This has been mentioned in a few places, but I wanted to get a thread specifically on the topic before making the change in master.

Many of us would like to drop support for PHP 5.3 in SilverStripe 4. I would like to make that official (i.e. committed to the master branch) shortly.

The main benefit we would get from PHP 5.4-only features would be traits. However, more minor things like session upload progress (http://php.net/manual/en/session.upload-progress.php) and short array syntax would also be nice.

More importantly, we will be able to incorporate libraries that don't work with PHP 5.3 as dependencies. As we're trying to reduce the amount of wheel-reinventing we do, this is an important consideration as many other modern PHP projects are dropping 5.3 supporting.

Finally, we will be helping the PHP community as a whole move forward, encouraging people to upgrade their servers from unsupported versions of PHP.

PHP 5.3 has been unsupported by the PHP team for a very long time, and even the "long term support" options that some have used to maintain PHP 5.3 support are ending at the end of the year.

Assuming there is agreement on this, I will put a PR into the master branch of cms and framework to:

 - Bump the PHP requirement in composer

 - Remove 5.3 from the test matrix

Then we can start building against PHP 5.4.

If anyone has objections to this, please make them known over the course of this week: in particular, please describe the situations that you have seen where upgrading from PHP 5.3 would be impossible and details of how security is managed on these environments. My understanding is that it will be extremely difficult to run a secure PHP environment, but maybe I'm wrong. However, I don't think "I know the environment is insecure but I still want to run SilverStripe 4 on it" is a particularly strong argument. SilverStripe 3 will still be available for those environments.

Some people have advocated going even further and dropping support for PHP 5.4, but... one thing at a time. Right now I'm only interested in fielding objections to dropping support for PHP 5.3.

Thanks,

Sam

[Sam Minnée]

FYI, the relevant pull request is here:

https://github.com/silverstripe/silverstripe-framework/pull/4478

[Gregory Smirnov]

I would advocate for skipping PHP 5.4 and going directly to 5.6 for speed improvements. By the time SS 4 will be released, PHP 5.6 will be sound and good J

 

Gregory

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[Daniel Hensby]

I think it's important to remember that the minimum supported version isn't the version you have to run on.

People can still make use of speed improvements in 5.6 and we run our test suite against it too, so it should work on that version of PHP.

Whilst there are no specific features in 5.6 that we depend on, we should not just set our composer requirement to it for the sake of "speed".

If we start making use of 5.4 features I have no objection to a bump. However, dropping it now just to use short array syntax seems a bit silly, it's not even in our coding conventions!

I think we all accept that 4 will likely be 5.4, but let's wait until we actually need it before we lock 5.3 out...

Dan

[Sam Minnée]

I disagree.

I think that we should make a decision and start acting accordingly. Whether it's traits or a 3rd party library, I find it extremely unlikely that the entire 4.x line will benefit from remaining 5.3 compatible.

I don't think that hovering in "maybe 5.3 compatible" does anyone any favours.

It certainly doesn't send a clear message to people who are thinking about SS4 support for their servers.

If we're going to to be 5.4+, lets be 5.4+.

If we're going to seriously advocate supporting 5.3, then let's make a solid case for that.

[Zauberfisch]

I think bumping to 5.4 is a very good step, because 5.4 is the version
with the most features we will benefit from.

however, I also support the argument for 5.6 as an even better option.
It was previously stated that by the time ss4 comes out, 5.6 will be a
good choice. To add to that, I think by that time, 5.4 will have
actually reached it's end of life.

Since we are already doing a major release with ss4, and are already
changing the php version, why not do it with a bigger step to catch up
with the stable releases?

The only argument for 5.4 I see is that some of the more conservative
platforms will probably still be on 5.4 at that time. Not sure how I
feel about that.

> 5.6 will be sound and good J____
>
> __ __
>
> Gregory____
>
> __ __
>
> __ __
>
> *From:*silverst...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:silverst...@googlegroups.com>
> [mailto:silverst...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:silverst...@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Sam
> Minnée
> *Sent:* 04 August 2015 09:46
> *To:* SilverStripe Core Development
> *Subject:* [silverstripe-dev] Re: SilverStripe 4 to drop support
> for PHP 5.3? Please voice any objections by 7 August.____
>
> __ __
>
> FYI, the relevant pull request is here:____
>
> https://github.com/silverstripe/silverstripe-framework/pull/4478____
>
>
> On Monday, 3 August 2015 11:47:01 UTC+12, Sam Minnée wrote:____
>
> Hi everyone,____
>
> __ __

>
> This has been mentioned in a few places, but I wanted to get a
> thread specifically on the topic before making the change in

> master.____
>
> __ __

>
> Many of us would like to drop support for PHP 5.3 in
> SilverStripe 4. I would like to make that official (i.e.

> committed to the master branch) shortly.____
>
> __ __

>
> The main benefit we would get from PHP 5.4-only features would
> be traits. However, more minor things like session upload
> progress (http://php.net/manual/en/session.upload-progress.php)

> and short array syntax would also be nice.____
>
> __ __

>
> More importantly, we will be able to incorporate libraries that
> don't work with PHP 5.3 as dependencies. As we're trying to
> reduce the amount of wheel-reinventing we do, this is an
> important consideration as many other modern PHP projects are

> dropping 5.3 supporting.____
>
> __ __

>
> Finally, we will be helping the PHP community as a whole move
> forward, encouraging people to upgrade their servers from

> unsupported versions of PHP.____
>
> __ __

>
> PHP 5.3 has been unsupported by the PHP team for a very long
> time, and even the "long term support" options that some have
> used to maintain PHP 5.3 support are ending at the end of the

> year.____
>
> __ __

>
> Assuming there is agreement on this, I will put a PR into the

> master branch of cms and framework to:____
>
> __ __
>
> - Bump the PHP requirement in composer____
>
> - Remove 5.3 from the test matrix____
>
> __ __
>
> Then we can start building against PHP 5.4.____
>
> __ __

>
> If anyone has objections to this, please make them known over
> the course of this week: in particular, please describe the
> situations that you have seen where upgrading from PHP 5.3 would
> be impossible and details of how security is managed on these
> environments. My understanding is that it will be extremely
> difficult to run a secure PHP environment, but maybe I'm wrong.
> However, I don't think "I know the environment is insecure but I
> still want to run SilverStripe 4 on it" is a particularly strong
> argument. SilverStripe 3 will still be available for those

> environments.____
>
> __ __

>
> Some people have advocated going even further and dropping
> support for PHP 5.4, but... one thing at a time. Right now I'm
> only interested in fielding objections to dropping support for

> PHP 5.3.____
>
> __ __
>
> Thanks,____
>
> Sam____

>
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[Sigurd Magnusson]

I can't see why we would benefit from hugging onto 5.3 when even Drupal8 (which is closer to reality than SS4) has higher than PHP 5.5.0 as requirement.

Given PHP 7 will be stable ahead of SS4 it's logical to contemplate 5.6 as a both a minimum and main focus for stable support, and test that we run on PHP7 compatibility. 

Given an upgrade to SS4 would require testing and changes to website code I can't see why people would expect the underlying OS/PHP layer would be any different.

Kind regards,

Sigurd

[Sam Minnée]

To be clear: the question I had originally raised is whether we should drop support for 5.3. Can we please focus on that question.

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[Marcus Nyeholt]

Looking at the LTS of the underlying operating systems that SS will be mostly hosted on is my preference. For example, the Ubuntu LTS that does PHP 5.3 (12.04) is end of life in 2017 - will next version of SS that drops 5.3 support (SS5?) be out by then? 

As it is 14.04 is my preference at present, and it does 5.5 as its default. 

[Sam Minnée]

The relevant comparison there would be "will SilverStripe 3.x be supported until 2017?"

[Marcus Nyeholt]

Yes, but also as a counter to Dan's point of not increasing the supported PHP version without using that version. It might actually be difficult to support PHP 5.3 in the reasonably near future from an infrastructure point of view, whether the software does or not. 

[Stevie Mayhew]

I am for dropping 5.3 support.

On Monday, 3 August 2015 11:47:01 UTC+12, Sam Minnée wrote:

[Sam Minnée]

Aha, good point. I think I misunderstood you as advocating for PHP 5.3 support in SS4.

I spoke to Dan & Loz this morning and they were both in favour of dropping PHP 5.3 support.

[Uncle Cheese]

Given that the end-of-life for 5.4 is in one month, and 5.5 end-of-life is less than a year out, I would advocate for 5.6. I'm also very interested in transpiled PHP, and I think there's an opportunity for us to lead the way on that. We could make the base PHP 7, and transpile for compatibility.

More to the point, given the parameters of the OP, strongly advocate dropping 5.3.

On Monday, 3 August 2015 11:47:01 UTC+12, Sam Minnée wrote:

[3dgoo]

I am all for dropping support for PHP 5.3. 

I am also happy with dropping support for PHP 5.4.

[Nicolaas Thiemen Francken - Sunny Side Up]

On 5 August 2015 at 10:32, 3dgoo <mic...@3dgoo.com> wrote:

I am all for dropping support for PHP 5.3. 

I am also happy with dropping support for PHP 5.4.

​+1 

One thing to remember is that when SS4 comes out it is still going to take at least six months for modules to upgraded, etc... so it may not be up to nine months later before people are starting to use SS4. By that time, there are probably new releases of LAMP stacks out there with later versions of PHP, etc... 

Why postpone the future?

[James Turner]

I agree about dropping PHP 5.3 support.

You mentioned one of the important benefits about dropping 5.3 is that it allows incorporating libraries that don't work with 5.3 as a dependency. Couldn't the same be said about maintaining PHP 5.4?

PHP 5.5 isn't without its own features that would likely not be backwards compatible and given it has been out for over 2 years, it is likely that libraries we may want to incorporate into the core only support PHP 5.5. Even that though will be reaching end-of-life June next year!

I really think it is worth discussing dropping more than PHP 5.3 if any PHP support changes are being considered.

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 9:17:01 AM UTC+9:30, Sam Minnée wrote: