PHP4 to PHP5 - time to make the upgrade?
Back on the 14th of July 2007 the PHP developers announced the EOL(thats end of life) for PHP 4. As of January 1st 2008 you will see no more releases of PHP 4 and only ”case by case” security fixes will be available until August 8th 2008.
So what does this mean for all the PHP developers out there who have huge applications developed in PHP 4? In a nut shell, its time to convert.
Its been over three years since the release of PHP 5 but as of yet we haven’t seen a huge amount of hosting companies making the switch. Why? Its simple, they can’t afford to effect their current clients. Hosting companies are however offering both as an option on new hosting plans. What this means to us developers is that our clients if not hosting with us may have already purchased or be running on PHP 5 engines. Do you want to tell you client that you can’t run on something that’s been a stable release for over 3 years? Thats what I thought.
Now what about the big development groups out there? What are they doing? Well according to the records at http://www.gophp5.org/ alot of them are in line to cast out their wicked PHP 4 ways and make their clients upgrade. While alot of the applications listed on that site are small if you go through the list you will see that some major players in the open source projects are making this change. You will find OsCommerce, PhpMyAdmin, and Drupal just to name a few that are joining in the movement. The hosting companies and development companies in this movement have set their date and its February 5th 2008. After that time passes you won’t find as much help nor new releases from these guys that still work on PHP 4.
This is not to say you will never work with PHP 4 again, but if your not up to speed on the PHP 5 release its definatly time. Unless you just don’t like making money!
Steven M.
Owner/Operator Infinifire