Re: Making PHP 5 a first class citizen

I'am absolutly +1 with these ideas, that are very clear. Regards, J.Pauli On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Philip Olson <philip@roshambo.org> wrote: > > On Oct 11, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Julien Pauli wrote: > >> My example was >> http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.predefined.php >> >> I have other examples of what I globally mean, these kinds are recurrent : >> >> -  "Note:  The null type was introduced in PHP 4." >> -  "Warning :  Before PHP 4.3.0, appending to an array in which the >> current maximum key was negative would create a new key as described >> above. Since PHP 4.3.0, the new key will be 0." >> - The whole chapter # Object Aggregation — Object >> Aggregation/Composition [PHP 4] >> - http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php >> has lots of >> PHP4 history like "session.gc_divisor ; Available since PHP 4.3.2." >> - "PHP supports CLI SAPI since PHP 4.3.0" >> - "Note : In PHP 4.0.3 and older, in order to use URL wrappers, you >> were required to configure PHP using the configure option >> --enable-url-fopen-wrapper ." >> - "Note : The Windows versions of PHP earlier than PHP 4.3 did not >> support remote file accessing for the following functions : XYZ" >> - "Note : Heredoc was added in PHP4" >> >> etc... >> >> What I mean is that, yes we should keep an history because its >> interesting to know what things happen, and when. But that history >> *should be kept in a specific part of the doc*, and *not* in the >> actual reference manual (regarding PHP4 at least) >> >> 99% of users visiting function or language specific pages of the >> manual dont care about the NULL type having spawned in PHP4, or that >> PHP supports CLI since 4.3.0. They are just looking for some info for >> their code and they are often disturbed while grabbing info by some >> "PHP4.X.Y things that are not here anymore in PHP4.XX.YY but back in >> PHP5" so yes, we are in PHP5, why that sentence ?. >> >> We should keep an history, but in a specific chapter. People today >> dont write code under PHP4, they *at least* maintain PHP4 apps alive, >> but dont work on PHP4 code anymore. >> >> Now about PHP5, it could be the same for 5.0 or even 5.1. We should >> have a debate about that as we can still see some PHP5.1 (RedHat) >> apps, but talking about PHP4 : it just keeps the reading heavy and >> sometimes even boring. > > There are two overlapping routes we can take here (and I'm sure others too): > > (A) Remove [most] all references to PHP 4. > > - This means we remove all the examples you showed because PHP 4 falls into the category of PHP > 3. It's just PHP. In other words, PHP always had NULL, and foreach() always existed. > > (B) Make PHP 5 a first class citizen. > > - This means we talk about PHP 5 as PHP, so never have "As of PHP 5" because PHP 5 is > the present. This however still means we keep track of PHP 4. > > Although I used to lean towards (B), I think it's time we go with (A). This means all PHP > 4 history is moved to a single location, with PHP 3 being an example: > >  - http://php.net/manual/php3.php > > One concern is comparing the PHP 4 version with the current 4->5 migration guide. We > don't want to lose anything, and because the migration guide doesn't cover PHP 4.x.x > specific changes there will be two documents: (1) The 4->5 migration guide and (2) PHP 4 version > specific changes. Does this sound reasonable? > > Regards, > Philip > > >