←back to thread

PHP 8.5

(stitcher.io)
214 points brentroose | 3 comments | 20 Nov 25 06:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.418s | source
Show context
darkamaul ◴[20 Nov 25 09:16 UTC] No.45990664[source]▶
PHP's evolution since PHP 5 has been substantial, and I think this is a real problem. As someone who learned the language years ago, the pace of change (generics, attributes, match expressions, typed properties) makes modern codebases genuinely difficult to follow.

I suspect this affects many developers who cut their teeth on PHP but haven't kept up. The language has become a different beast, which is a strength for the community but a barrier to re-entry.

replies(12): >>45990804 #>>45990834 #>>45990835 #>>45990949 #>>45991400 #>>45992500 #>>45992620 #>>45992776 #>>45993443 #>>45993687 #>>45995052 #>>45995108 #
johnisgood ◴[20 Nov 25 09:39 UTC] No.45990835[source]▶
I think PHP is way better now than it used to be. Learn PHP 8 and you are good to go.
replies(1): >>45993127 #
1. erickf1 ◴[20 Nov 25 14:50 UTC] No.45993127[source]▶
Until two years later the same thing is said about PHP 9, 10, 11. Constant change is not good.
replies(2): >>45993354 #>>45996473 #
2. johnisgood ◴[20 Nov 25 15:08 UTC] No.45993354[source]▶
People still complain about PHP saying how it is not secure at all, how shitty of a language it is, and so on, because they are stuck at PHP 5. Everyone should just start from PHP 8.

I have no clue what the future brings for PHP, but PHP 8 is definitely a good start, and we should put PHP 5 to rest.

PHP 10 might not be that different from PHP 8 for all I know.

We do not know if there will be "constant change". Out of curiosity, what programming language do you use that you also love?

FWIW, if by "constant change" you mean improvements or bug fixes, then I do not see why we should not have those. I do not even mind breaking backwards compatibility if the reasons for breaking justifies it, but it has to be a really good reason.

3. kyriakos ◴[20 Nov 25 19:16 UTC] No.45996473[source]▶
It gets updated but breaking changes are not that many and always well justified. Most breaking changes I've seen the past decade only broke if your code was already bad relying on non standard ways of using language features. There are tools that help with migration.