Re: Maintaining PHP 5 documentation

On Fri, Dec 4, 2020, 21:03 Christoph M. Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> wrote: > On 04.12.2020 at 20:17, Gabriel Caruso wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 4, 2020, 16:14 Gabriel Caruso <carusogabriel34@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > >> On Fri, Dec 4, 2020, 16:01 Anna Filina <me@afilina.com> wrote: > >> > >>> 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. 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? > >>> - How much effort does it require to maintain the legacy docs? > >>> - Are there any associated costs? > >> > >> I believe this was the PR archiving it: > >> https://github.com/php/web-php/pull/341 > >> > >> I'll check in the mailing list of there's a discussion thread meanwhile. > > > > There you go: https://news-web.php.net/php.doc/969387511 > > That message referred to another thread, which is > > <https://marc.info/?l=phpdoc&m=157659936427907&w=2>. > > The basic problem with maintaining documentation for PHP 5 is the > overhead for maintainers (who are not as numerous as the stars in the > sky; actually it's more like the number of planets you can see in the > sky with the naked eye), *and* for most readers (there are sometimes > long changelog lists, and some notes sprinkled through the text > regarding behavior as of, or prior to certain PHP versions). I'm also maintaining some legacy PHP 5.x code and am very upset about this change. I would not expect anyone to do extra maintenance work, but it would be very kind if you could republish the old docs as legacy-docs.php.net or something? It's very handy sometimes to see which methods and parameters were available in a certain version to know if you can use them or not. I know it would still be some work to maintain a separate docs http installation but i think that's a very reasonable effort? If I can help, I would.