RE: [PHP4BETA] A quick clarification question about PHP4...

> -----Original Message----- > From: Scott Stevenson [mailto:scott@maxify.com] > Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 12:06 PM > To: php4beta@lists.php.net > Subject: Re: [PHP4BETA] A quick clarification question about PHP4... > > Reading my message again, I realize this sounded a bit harsh. All my > comments are made with the upmost respect for the core PHP > developers. Lord > knows I couldn't do what they/you are doing. Thats the view of most people, its just that to some people, including me, it looks as though the wise-and-clever developers have suddenly stopped features that made it cool and popular and easy to use, and switched to measuring correctness against some arcane model appreciated by few. As I user I just want cool features, (thats why I switched to php3 from perl) I don't want them taking away. The instability of the programming interface is making me regret my change at the moment. (I've now developed whole sites around it and the change to php4 is going to be dreadful (as dreadful as the change to perl)). I really don't think the extra workload involved in converting my existing major sites (over thousands independant visitors each month for some customers) is going to be worth it. I will have to run two copies of the site, one php3 and one php4 !!! that means two copies of apache with different modules in! Agghh. I really don't think the developers have though through this restriction of features at all. That means I can't really introduce php4 to my customers any time soon at all because of the effort in simultaneously converting all my code from php3. When php3 came out with the convertor from phpfi (which I toyed with briefly) I though that it was the last of the incompatable-upgrades there would be with php. But no! And these changes aren't even for any good reason except that Zeev thinks they are not important. (And his opinion is worth a lot as it is his project) but so is mine, because I know why I use php and its because me and others use it that Zeev is even bothering with it now. So... good on you, Zeev, but please re-think this syntax changes. They really bugger up a lot of things. Cutting out backwards compatability because it isn't important to you doesn't mean it isn't for the user base. And I don't apologise for harping on; this is important to me and others who've realised what it means. More people (and I mean real users, non-beta testing type) are going to get caught short with this with little or no notice by their ISP and a lot of pain will be caused. Its best that everyone is fully aware now either to prepare, or lobby the wise-men to make the change back again. Sam