Re: I've some doubts if I should go with 5.2 or go already with 5.3 (for a course)

Per Jessen wrote:

Robert Cummings wrote:

Per Jessen wrote:

Manuel Aude wrote:

I'm giving a PHP course next semester (3 hours all saturdays for 22 weeks) and I just realized that PHP 5.3 is coming very soon (2 days now!). So, my plans of teaching PHP 5.2 are starting to change, and I think it's a good idea to teach them 5.3 already.

Does it _really_ matter which one? I can't imagine there are that many revolutionary changes in a dot-release.

Given the naming of PHP versions of PHP-x.y.z, I would agree that not much changes between versions at the .z level. But at the .y level there are usually significant changes. Coming to a PHP 5.3 near you are the following notable features:

     - namespaces
     - closures
     - late static binding
     - garbage collector to handle cyclic references
     - PHAR
     - goto

I hadn't actually seen/studied the list, but apart from the goto, I don't consider any of those revolutionary :-)

Revolutionary, no. Major changes for PHP, yes! Major shifts in development practices for PHP... it depends on who you are or where you work, but certainly some of these will mark changes in development for many people. Cheers, Rob. -- http://www.interjinn.com Application and Templating Framework for PHP