Why PHP4?
Richard Heyes
years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
--
Richard Heyes
http://www.phpguru.org
n3or
Richard Heyes schrieb:
> I'm interested - why are people still using PHP4? It's been over 4
> years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
--
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Per Jessen
> I'm interested - why are people still using PHP4? It's been over 4
> years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
Migration issues for instance - we have quite a bit of code that uses
sablotron - in PHP5 that's been changed to libxslt, which requires
extensive code-changes.
Also, something about setlocale() got regressed (and never fixed) in
4.3.10 or thereabouts, which means we have at least one app that's
running on 4.3.8.
Finally - why migrate? What's the rush? Lots of people are still
running back-level software - e.g. apache, mysql, php, gcc, linux, you
name it. In our shop, migrating working PHP code has one of the lowest
priorities.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Eric Butera
Why is COBOL still in use? :)
Richard Heyes
What is COBOL? :-)
Aschwin Wesselius
> Compatibility to older Software of the hosters and sloth of the
> developers
>
> Richard Heyes schrieb:
>> I'm interested - why are people still using PHP4? It's been over 4
>> years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
I think because retro is hot these days....or was....or will be again
within short notice....... ;-)
--
Aschwin Wesselius
/'What you would like to be done to you, do that to the other....'/
Richard Heyes
> running back-level software
That I can understand. I'm still running Apache 1.3.33 (I think) along
with PHP 5.0.4.
Per Jessen
>> Finally - why migrate? What's the rush? Lots of people are still
>> running back-level software
>
> That I can understand. I'm still running Apache 1.3.33 (I think) along
> with PHP 5.0.4.
Right, you've answered your own question. You're still on Apache 1.3.33
because you've had no time or reason to upgrade.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
burgerm...@gmail.com
Because all the cool kids are running PHP4. I mean...its what Paris
Hilton runs. So...I should run it too!
mike
> Compatibility to older Software of the hosters and sloth of the developers
i think this is a cop-out, any halfass open source package should be
compatible with php5 now.
i've been running php5 since it came out and everything i have tried
never has a single issue due to php versions. and i've tried a lot of
stuff :P
actually, a lot of stuff is finally saying "php5 only" now ... in
theory lazy hosters may be creating a poor hosting environment the
longer they sit on it.
Richard Heyes
Just in time for PHP6... :-)
VamVan
converted their CGI or other websites in to PHP 4 websites because it was
easy and cheap. But 5.0 brought too many changes like serious OOPS and
register global concepts for security, which is useful but made transition
difficult. I feel thats why PHP 4 is still supported.
Its not only the language that has changed, but also people had to upgrade
their skill set and there was some learning curve involved.
Unfortunately everyone fell in the trap of register globals which was not
dealt until php 4.3.1 as a security concept. Pear and Pecl were there but
everyone was pretty much writing all the code (reinventing the wheel) from
scratch. This brings in huge code base to change.
I liked PHP because intitially it was a procedural langauge and it resembled
C. But now with OOPS you can build powerful websites which is good.
There are many other cases but I feel strongly this is what makes them
still support PHP 4.
Thanks
mike
from a security angle per se, but because it just makes sense to know
the source of where your input data is coming from. I guess
technically security is a byproduct of that thinking too.
VamVan
websites that got hit because they haven't used super globals in the code
and their hosting provided would just change the PHP.ini setting and nothing
would work.
GET, POST , SESSION, REQUEST everything was all dealt as just variable.
Richard Heyes
> websites that got hit because they haven't used super globals in the code
> and their hosting provided would just change the PHP.ini setting and nothing
> would work.
Well if it's a "big" website then why use a hoster that changes the
php.ini without much, if any, thought?
Per Jessen
>> I agree but not everyone think in the sameway. I have seen several
>> big websites that got hit because they haven't used super globals in
>> the code and their hosting provided would just change the PHP.ini
>> setting and nothing would work.
>
> Well if it's a "big" website then why use a hoster that changes the
> php.ini without much, if any, thought?
>
The technical abilities and awareness is often inversely proportional to
the size of the hoster.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Richard Heyes
> the size of the hoster.
Lol.
Hélio Rocha
But I think that with PHP4 a lot of people start thinking that they could be
programmers (maybe they can, developers it's another story). When php5 came
they didn't know how do deal with the deprecated methods and worst, some
hosters didn't know how to virtualize a f1ck1n' server with Apache+PHP5. A
lot of mistakes were made when php5 came out but how can a language grow up
when they DEPRECATE the syntax? we're not talking about removing the last
';'...
Maybe I'm in a "GET LOST PHP" phase but I think that someone is killing it,
and the ones who are stuck in 4 are not helping.
When U write code, U must not be worried 'bout the next upgrade of your
server!
Best regards!
Thijs Lensselink
> Sorry to disagree,
>
> But I think that with PHP4 a lot of people start thinking that they could be
> programmers (maybe they can, developers it's another story). When php5 came
> they didn't know how do deal with the deprecated methods and worst, some
> hosters didn't know how to virtualize a f1ck1n' server with Apache+PHP5. A
> lot of mistakes were made when php5 came out but how can a language grow up
> when they DEPRECATE the syntax? we're not talking about removing the last
> ';'...
O come on. All people have had enough time to get used to it. Between
the time PHP5 first came out and when it started to gain attention
mainstream wise. Is a gap of 5 years. I think 5 years is enough to get
used to new / deprecated features. I still think PHP is moving the
right way.
When i do an upgrade i first check change logs. You can always expect
things to change. It's a dynamic world we live in :)
> Maybe I'm in a "GET LOST PHP" phase but I think that someone is killing it,
> and the ones who are stuck in 4 are not helping.
>
> When U write code, U must not be worried 'bout the next upgrade of your
> server!
>
>
> Best regards!
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 3:31 AM, VamVan <vams...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Its because PHP got really famous with version 4.0 and many people actually
>> converted their CGI or other websites in to PHP 4 websites because it was
>> easy and cheap. But 5.0 brought too many changes like serious OOPS and
>> register global concepts for security, which is useful but made transition
>> difficult. I feel thats why PHP 4 is still supported.
>>
>> Its not only the language that has changed, but also people had to upgrade
>> their skill set and there was some learning curve involved.
>>
>> Unfortunately everyone fell in the trap of register globals which was not
>> dealt until php 4.3.1 as a security concept. Pear and Pecl were there but
>> everyone was pretty much writing all the code (reinventing the wheel) from
>> scratch. This brings in huge code base to change.
>>
>> I liked PHP because intitially it was a procedural langauge and it
>> resembled
>> C. But now with OOPS you can build powerful websites which is good.
>>
>> There are many other cases but I feel strongly this is what makes them
>> still support PHP 4.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>
Personally i use PHP5 when ever i can. But at work we are stuck with
some small legacy applications . And some major applications written
on top of PHP4. For which is no time to do the research let alone the
time to rebuild them. I think there are a few reasons why people still
use PHP4.
1. People learned PHP4 as a hobby. So upgrading knowledge goes much
slower. Then when you have to stay on top work wise. (which will
create a chicken egg situation with point 2)
2. Hosting providers have no clue how to configure their environment.
Or are stuck with customers running PHP4 applications.
3. No time to research and rebuild existing applications. (which will
create a chicken egg situation with point 2)
Richard Heyes
That's nothing to apologise for.
> But I think that with PHP4 a lot of people start thinking that they could be
> programmers (maybe they can, developers it's another story). When php5 came
> they didn't know how do deal with the deprecated methods and worst, some
> hosters didn't know how to virtualize a f1ck1n' server with Apache+PHP5. A
> lot of mistakes were made when php5 came out but how can a language grow up
> when they DEPRECATE the syntax? we're not talking about removing the last
That's not the problem of the PHP developers. Learning is not a case
of spend a few years doing it and you're set - it's a life long thing.
> Maybe I'm in a "GET LOST PHP" phase but I think that someone is killing it,
> and the ones who are stuck in 4 are not helping.
There are alternatives - have you heard of Brainfuck?
> When U write code, U must not be worried 'bout the next upgrade of your
> server!
Of course you should. Writing code with every eventuality in mind is
simply ludicrous. And you really should expect things to change when
major versions are changed - that's why release notes exist.
Hélio Rocha
Sure you must see the changelog and other things but take a look:
I can do more and better things with the next generation of the language in
which i wrote my app, but i don't think that it's fair that my app doens't
compile (if it was a compiled language) or stops executing just because i
get an upgrade.
Per Jessen
> methods and worst, some hosters didn't know how to virtualize a
> f1ck1n' server with Apache+PHP5.
Despite their many inabilities, I doubt if any hosting service would
have a problem with that.
If you're trying to figure out why so many haven't changed, there's one
question you need to ask - why should they? What's the business-case?
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Per Jessen
>
>> When U write code, U must not be worried 'bout the next upgrade of
>> your server!
>
> Of course you should. Writing code with every eventuality in mind is
> simply ludicrous.
Umm, I beg to differ. A developer should not need to worry about a
possible/future upgrade of the runtime platform. I certainly don't
worry about the next release of gcc or glibc when I write C.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Richard Heyes
> possible/future upgrade of the runtime platform. I certainly don't
> worry about the next release of gcc or glibc when I write C.
Minor point releases certainly, but not major ones. They're major
upgrades for a reason - things change.
Lester Caine
I can live with both sides of the argument.
All the SQL scripts I write SHOULD still work with a later version of the
database engine, but changes to make things compatible with standards can
cause problems with that. So I need to test scripts following a major release.
PHP upgrades have certainly broken backwards compatibility, but then I've had
similar problems with the Borland C compilers as well. But at least Borland
attempt to update things to at least compile in later versions and warn of the
'errors'
gcc has had problems and I see various posts about 'not using version xxx' for
building yyy because it's broken. So we all have to live with the possibility
that a later version may not ACTUALLY work for us - and wait for the problem
to be fixed either in gcc or the application. ( Wasn't there a problem with
PHP5 and some version of gcc? )
I don't agree with a lot of the 'changes' that are being forced into PHP5 and
certainly feel that they should have been kept to PHP6, but the real problem
to date has been BACKPORTING some of these changes TO PHP4 rather than having
frozen any 'development' of PHP4 a lot earlier. I never used PHP4 and I would
prefer not to have to worry about it now, but projects I am using still
maintain backwards compatibility rather than also freezing a version that
works with PHP4.X and then moving developments forward. Currently I'm looking
at a lot of 'deprecated' messages from PHP5.3.x and wondering "Do I fix them
and risk problems with PHP4 compatibility or do I just switch off the error?"
Some ISP's are still only supporting rather ancient versions of PHP4. They
should simply be warned of the security risks. Some ISP's have a PHP5
offering, but again an older version simply because it causes less problems
when converting from PHP4. PHP5.3 is going to throw up another round of
problems which makes a move from PHP4 even more time consuming so there should
be a serious discussion as to *IF* that should be allowed? Keeping moving the
goal posts even further from an environment into which PHP4 applications can
be ported easily is the problem, rather than the switch from PHP4 to PHP5 pre
say :(
Lets request that PHP5.3 is not released at this time, but instead an effort
is put in to get all the major web applications at least running in PHP5.2
before even more changes are introduced.
And a beta release of PHP6 with a clean unicode base would be nice ...
--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php
Per Jessen
>> Umm, I beg to differ. A developer should not need to worry about a
>> possible/future upgrade of the runtime platform. I certainly don't
>> worry about the next release of gcc or glibc when I write C.
>
> Minor point releases certainly, but not major ones. They're major
> upgrades for a reason - things change.
Yes, but a change in the language or a library should not force anyone
to make source code changes. IMHO, that is to be avoided at all costs.
A recompile is acceptable, of course.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Per Jessen
> Some ISP's are still only supporting rather ancient versions of PHP4.
> They should simply be warned of the security risks. Some ISP's have a
> PHP5 offering, but again an older version simply because it causes
> less problems when converting from PHP4.
The problem for an ISP is - with thousands of customers, he has no way
of knowing who has used what PHP extension or feature. Without
virtually guaranteed backwards compatibility, a mass upgrade of 4 to 5
could be a major headache.
Besides, are the security risks sufficiently severe for the ISP to
warrant the upgrade effort+headache?
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Lester Caine
Having seen the problems some of the 'upgrades' have caused I can only agree.
But getting a stable version of PHP5 out on to which existing PHP4 users can
be migrated is probably essential. And feature freezing that base is a must,
so that at least there is a fixed target. I've managed to sort of jump through
single versions of 5.0.x - 5.1.6 and now 5.2.6 although the latter was more
due to regressive bugs in most of the versions from 5.1.6 to 5.2.6.
At present I can't see any logic reason to even bother with 5.3 until all of
my customer sites have been moved to 5.2.6 which will probably take another
year. so anything that helps people at least start migrating TO PHP5 should be
encouraged?
Micah Gersten
of necessity but is superseded by a superior language form.
A great example is the HTML FONT tag. Font tags slow down downloads and
renderings, and were deprecated in favor of CSS style sheets which offer
much more control and a smaller footprint.
Thank you,
Micah Gersten
onShore Networks
Internal Developer
http://www.onshore.com
Micah Gersten
backwards supporting everything you end up with a big monster engine
that is incredibly slow.
Thank you,
Micah Gersten
onShore Networks
Internal Developer
http://www.onshore.com
Sancar Saran
People believes
Do not fix until broke
Motto.
Testing new online application may painfull.
Jim Lucas
I am the tech support department, not only web hosting but Phones, DSL, T1,
Email, Toll Free, etc...
The key thing in tech support, is to get to the problem and fix it. Don't let
the conversation get away from the reason they called. As long as you can fix
the problem, assuming their is a problem, the customer will be happy. But all
the while not sounding harsh or impatient to the customer.
But, on the flip side, you don't want to be just a knowledge base that people
could login to on your website. Isn't that they reason you have live support?
Anyways...
--
Jim Lucas
"Some men are born to greatness, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them."
Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V
by William Shakespeare
Jason Pruim
On Jul 30, 2008, at 10:50 AM, Micah Gersten wrote:
> Sometimes speed improvements require removing things. If you end up
> backwards supporting everything you end up with a big monster engine
> that is incredibly slow.
Just ask Microsoft about that ;)
--
Jason Pruim
Raoset Inc.
Technology Manager
MQC Specialist
11287 James St
Holland, MI 49424
www.raoset.com
jap...@raoset.com
Per Jessen
>
> On Jul 30, 2008, at 10:50 AM, Micah Gersten wrote:
>
>> Sometimes speed improvements require removing things. If you end up
>> backwards supporting everything you end up with a big monster engine
>> that is incredibly slow.
>
>
> Just ask Microsoft about that ;)
Better ask IBM instead - they've done it for much longer and with much
better results.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Kevin Waterson
> I'm interested - why are people still using PHP4? It's been over 4
> years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
I asked that question and was called a troll...
Kevin
Chris
Definitely. I've been the server-admin behind this sort of stuff
(actually php3 -> php4 :P) and it's very hard to do even on your own
servers. Clients get other developers to write their software so you
have no idea what it does etc, you can't support it, you certainly don't
want to break it - so as much as possible you leave the server alone (of
course you upgrade for security issues, that's a given).
In time you get a new server and slowly migrate people to that, kill off
the old server and rinse-repeat.
--
Postgresql & php tutorials
http://www.designmagick.com/
Jason
Hash: SHA1
n3or wrote:
> Compatibility to older Software of the hosters and sloth of the developers
>
> Richard Heyes schrieb:
>> I'm interested - why are people still using PHP4? It's been over 4
>> years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
Don't lump the developers into the bin for the sys-admins. When I took
my current position over 2 years ago I started pushing for upgrading to
PHP5...and it's just barely getting done now.
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Judson Vaughn
If its fixed, don't break it.
Jud.
==
Per Jessen wrote:
> Richard Heyes wrote:
>
>
>> I'm interested - why are people still using PHP4? It's been over 4
>> years (I think) - plenty of time to upgrade to five.
>>
>
> Migration issues for instance - we have quite a bit of code that uses
> sablotron - in PHP5 that's been changed to libxslt, which requires
> extensive code-changes.
>
> Also, something about setlocale() got regressed (and never fixed) in
> 4.3.10 or thereabouts, which means we have at least one app that's
> running on 4.3.8.
>
> Finally - why migrate? What's the rush? Lots of people are still
> running back-level software - e.g. apache, mysql, php, gcc, linux, you
> name it. *In our shop, migrating working PHP code has one of the lowest
> priorities*.
>
>
> /Per Jessen, Zürich
>
>
>
V S Rawat
I was surprised to see some very busy and well to do Chartered
Accountants, Company Secretaries still using those 8086 pcs with
Wordstar and lotus that were there on mid 80s.
They say these are no more available so data in these pcs and these
formats are much more safer than that on a latest machine/ software.
--
V
Micah Gersten
the point of having it?
Thank you,
Micah Gersten
onShore Networks
Internal Developer
http://www.onshore.com
Robert Cummings
> You can't steal it, but you can't do anything with it either, so what's
> the point of having it?
>
>
> >
> > I was surprised to see some very busy and well to do Chartered
> > Accountants, Company Secretaries still using those 8086 pcs with
> > Wordstar and lotus that were there on mid 80s.
> >
> > They say these are no more available so data in these pcs and these
> > formats are much more safer than that on a latest machine/ software.
I'm calling shenanigans. It was a breeze to setup windows 3.11 WFWG in
VMWare. There's a VM for almost every old system these days.
Cheers,
Rob.
--
http://www.interjinn.com
Application and Templating Framework for PHP
V S Rawat
> You can't steal it, but you can't do anything with it either, so what's
> the point of having it?
They are getting it printed and processing the printed hard copy
further. That's all.
They even have full fledged working programs (say, in good old foxpro)
to keep track of a clients work progress, next action date, reminders,
track of payment from the clients, to the agents who get the work done,
so on.
I mean it is a complete working system as it was in 80s.
--
V
Luke
Luke Slater
Lead Developer
NuVoo
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>
Per Jessen
> A friend works in a place where they use pascal as a database
> interface!
Nothing wrong with that - Pascal is a decent language. I know places
that still use APL2 - you need a special keyboard for that. And you'll
probably have to go and look up what it is :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_%28programming_language%29#APL2
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Per Jessen
>
> I'm calling shenanigans. It was a breeze to setup windows 3.11 WFWG in
> VMWare. There's a VM for almost every old system these days.
Very true, but not every one is a breeze. I've been trying to get to
play "Master Of Magic" on DOS for quite some time. On OS2 it _was_ a
breeze, but trying to get DOS622 to run (with sound, cdrom and minimal
memory usage) in Virtualbox is not a breeze.
/Per Jessen, Zürich