Re: Maintaining PHP 5 documentation

Andreas, Hm, I don't think that it would allow us to do things like clean the legacy docs of unnecessary references to newer behavior or fix pre-existing issues in the legacy docs. Since major versions coexist for a time, I assume there's no clean cutoff point in the revisions. Here's my vision of the docs. Let me know what you like and what you don't, and propose alternatives. - Current manual located at /manual/en. Only currently supported versions of PHP are referenced here, with links to legacy docs. - Legacy docs located at /manual/php5/en. Only PHP 5.x versions are references, with links to other legacy versions and/or the current version. <-- I can find resources/financing to manage the legacy docs, including hosting. I'm trying to find a solution that is both good for the devs but also requires no ongoing effort from the docs team. Anna On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 2:52 PM Andreas Heigl <andreas@heigl.org> wrote: > We could think about building docs for a certain tag/revision or branching > of a PHP5 (as well as a PHP7?) release branch for the docs as well. And > then build the docs from those branches. > > Cheers > > Andreas > > 04.12.2020 20:46:55 Anna Filina <me@afilina.com>: > > > Thanks for such a detailed answer! > > > > Would it make sense for someone to maintain a completely separate manual > specifically for those retired docs? > > > > Advantages: > > - The rest of the team could maintain only docs for the current versions. > > - The legacy docs would still be online, searchable and linkable. > > > > I can find the resources necessary to make this work. > > > > Anna > > > > On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 2:24 PM G. P. B. <george.banyard@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 19:01, Anna Filina <me@afilina.com> wrote: > >>> Hi team, > >>> > >>> I landed on this plain 404 page yesterday: > > https://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.sect.safe-mode.php#ini.safe-mode > >>> > >>> I was told that the PHP 5 docs are in the process of being removed > from php.net[http://php.net/]. This is not ideal for me as I maintain and > migrate legacy applications for a living. > >>> > >>> I would like to understand the reasoning behind this decision and > perhaps offer some help to remedy the situation: > >>> - Are there any inherent problems with keeping the legacy docs online? > >> > >> We don't have multiple copies of the docs so everything lives on one > page. > >> There is an archive of the PHP Documentation before we started removing > mentions of it. > >> Akin to how the PHP 4 docs are handled. > >> > >> > >>> - How much effort does it require to maintain the legacy docs? > >> > >> Because everything is on one page, maintaining accurate docs for the > range PHP 5 - 8 > >> is rather impractical, many things changed, functions got removed, > functions had drastic > >> behavioural changes, etc. > >> > >>> - Are there any associated costs? > >> > >> The human cost of needing to maintain such a large range of versions > and to maintain > >> and clarify docs which are only relevant to PHP 5 when we could spend > our time on > >> more productive things. > >> Secondly removing docs alleviates the burden on translations. > >> > >>> Thanks, > >>> Anna Filina > >>> https://twitter.com/afilina (DMs are open) > >> > >> Hope this clarifies some of it. > >> > >> Best regards, > >> > >> George P. Banyard >