rant: php4

[k0nr4d]

How come so many of you people are still running php4?

It's driving me insane. Half the time even new servers that get setup the admins install php4 on. I'm sick of being stuck using php4 functions like some kind of fucking cave man!

I understand there's the possibility of some compatibility issues because of register_globals being off by default but god damn. its 7 years old!

I've also seen some pretty big players still running version 3 of mysql!

[grumpy]

if it works, dont touch it. Maybe you should be more clear in your requests when you order a server, just say, hey, i want php 5 on it.

[Superterrorizer]

if it works, dont touch it. Maybe you should be more clear in your requests when you order a server, just say, hey, i want php 5 on it.

Correct. If it's not broken and there are no security issues there really is no reason to upgrade if everything is working fine.

[Subtle]

The real problem is that people are slow to accept changes. Hence, there are very few successful people as they take risks , challenges and are not scared of troubles or obstacles.

You should feel happy that you are among the few to be ahead. There shall be servers catering to your needs.

Three Cheers!! Hope you inspire people to adopt PHP5! Cheers!

[k0nr4d]

Correct. If it's not broken and there are no security issues there really is no reason to upgrade if everything is working fine.

Thats a valid point, yes, but I mean, at SOME POINT they HAVE to upgrade. 10 Years down the road are they gonna be running php4 still because everythings working fine?

[tical]

Thats a valid point, yes, but I mean, at SOME POINT they HAVE to upgrade. 10 Years down the road are they gonna be running php4 still because everythings working fine?

if it aint broke don't fix it, end users don't care what version of php or mysql you're running... as long as they get what they expect in a timely fashion it shouldn't really matter

[edgeprod]

Thats a valid point, yes, but I mean, at SOME POINT they HAVE to upgrade. 10 Years down the road are they gonna be running php4 still because everythings working fine?

Why not?

You should SEE some of the stuff our customers are running. I can't even TELL you how many times I've said things like, "Do you mind if we at least install something from the current decade?"

[Donkey Punch]

The real problem is that people are slow to accept changes. Hence, there are very few successful people as they take risks , challenges and are not scared of troubles or obstacles.

This statement is soo fucking true !!

I used vb3 for sooo long after vb6 came out..
I used vb6 for soo long after vb.net came out..
I used text files for soo long even after I learned about DB's

etc..

I was always in the mentality "if its not broke dont fix it"

This is the wrong mindset, as upgrades do serve a purpose..

[fris]

upgraded to php5 weeks ago.

PHP 5.2.3 with Suhosin-Patch 0.9.6.2 (cli) (built: Jun 4 2007 23:29:02)

[darksoul]

I understand there's the possibility of some compatibility issues because of register_globals being off by default but god damn. its 7 years old!

register_globals was off by default in php4 as well
This wouldn't be a problem if it was the only difference between the two
but from php4 to php5 there are major changes
People have lots of custom code that will be a pain to upgrade to php5
A lot of other software is not compatible with php5 yet. php5 requires
mysql5 and apache2 in order to make use of all its features.
Everyone has different reasons for not switching and among them its the fact
that php4 is widely used and pretty stable compared to php5.

Any host will install php5 for you if you asked for it.

[nation-x]

php4 is widely used and pretty stable compared to php5.

Can you show me an example of this claim?

http://sebastian-bergmann.de/archive...rformance.html

[fluffygrrl]

That's nothing, do you know how old the c compiler is ?

Newer is not necessarily better.

[darksoul]

Can you show me an example of this claim?

http://sebastian-bergmann.de/archive...rformance.html

performance and stability aren't the same thing in my book.

[StuartD]

php5 has been around since 2004.... 3 years is plenty of time to get over your fears and learn something new. It's MUCH better in terms of speed, stability and functionality. It has been for a long time.

People who stick with php4 because of the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach must still be using a 7 pound cell phone, because there's obviously no need for better service or more features.

[georgeyw]

have php5 on one server and php4 on another - simply because some scripts just won't work with php5 Would love to run latest versions of everything.

[darksoul]

php5 has been around since 2004.... 3 years is plenty of time to get over your fears and learn something new. It's MUCH better in terms of speed, stability and functionality. It has been for a long time.

People who stick with php4 because of the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach must still be using a 7 pound cell phone, because there's obviously no need for better service or more features.

you must not have a lot of custom code
theres a reason some still run fortran or cobol or lisp.

[StuartD]

you must not have a lot of custom code
theres a reason some still run fortran or cobol or lisp.

Everything I write is custom code... and I can tell you right now that the ONLY reason that something on a PHP4 server won't work on a PHP5 server is that it was written improperly.

Everything I have written while working with PHP4 will work on PHP5.

[darksoul]

Everything I write is custom code... and I can tell you right now that the ONLY reason that something on a PHP4 server won't work on a PHP5 server is that it was written improperly.

Everything I have written while working with PHP4 will work on PHP5.

lucky you
but you've got to understand that you're a happy case
theres lots of flaky coders out there.
For some companies to rewrite thousands of lines of code just because
theres this new thing called php5 is not a viable option.

In time things will migrate but not as fast as you want. Theres always
early adopters and people that like to wait.

I've been using apache2 in production since the first release. Lots of people are still using apache1.3

[RawAlex]

Correct. If it's not broken and there are no security issues there really is no reason to upgrade if everything is working fine.

Sadly, there are security issues in both php3 and php4, particularly in passing global variables and making things pretty much wide open. I would be very surprised at any larger hosting company not installed php5.