The end of PHP 4

[Scott MacVicar]

Derick Rethans the PHP 4 Release Manager has announced that the PHP Group will be making no further releases of the PHP 4 branch after the 31st of December this year.

I think everyone can agree that this has been a long time coming.

vBulletin 3.6.5 supports PHP 5.2.0 and so should most of those other scripts you are using. All the next releases of distros should have PHP 5 by default which leaves Ensim, Plesk and Cpanel to make the final changes to use each of them as their default.

Off note: Though this was more worthy of Chit Chat than the other forums since its a fairly significant change.

[filburt1]

About freaking time.

At work, our development server finally runs PHP 5.2, as does my home server. Unfortunately, our master live server that 90% of our clients use still runs PHP 4, and it's unlikely we'll upgrade; instead, we're more likely to just get a new server and start fresh.

We do use PostgreSQL on both the live/dev servers, as well as my home server. I can't stand this MySQL crap. I loves me a true RDBMS.

[Joe Gronlund]

Been running PHP 5.2 for a while now..

[Quillz]

I use PHP 5 on my personal web server, although I think my host still uses PHP 4.

[IDN]

I still have no upgraded to PHP 5 or the new MySQL version, I don't use that many scripts so I don't think there would be a problem, but you never know.

[Chroder]

Yessss, finally

[Floris]

That's great news!

[simsim]

We do use PostgreSQL on both the live/dev servers, as well as my home server. I can't stand this MySQL crap. I loves me a true RDBMS.

Why do you consider MySQL crappy?

[WurkAnimal]

Thank you for letting us know, good news!

[Cloud Strife]

Well... lets hope the cPanel guys finally get their thumbs out now

[Scott MacVicar]

Why do you consider MySQL crappy?

Prior to MySQL 5.0 I'd agree, advanced functionality was fairly missing. I'd even suggest that its more or less broken until 5.1 since you need the SUPER privilege in 5.0 to use stored procedures (I think). Also the default MyISAM table format is just lousy for performance, table locking is never a good idea.

Postgres didn't have support for Windows until 8.0 which is good, I'd also say that some of the things simply aren't as friendly compared to MySQL like backups and just general maintenance.

[filburt1]

Why do you consider MySQL crappy?

Prior to MySQL 5, it lacked true referential integrity, triggers, views (my God, views, they're so simple and it still lacked them), and so on. I'm not sure, but even 5 might still lack sequences. Now, including both MySQL 4 and 5, it still fails to come close to following ANSI SQL standards. PostgreSQL isn't perfect, but it comes much closer.

I used PostgreSQL for one project at work, and due to that and another coworker/friend pushing for it, it is now the standard for all new sites we develop. Screw MySQL.

My home server is backed up daily via:

pg_dumpall --oids -U [i]username[/i] > /usbdrive/Backups/postgresql.sql

edit: the idea of having to use a non-default type of table just to have foreign key support, the second most important foundational principle of an RDBMS (the first being proper primary key support), is so stupid. A table should be a table. The point of the DBMS is to abstract how it stores the information such that you don't care.

[Bob Isaac]

I trust all vB release will be backwards compatible with PHP 4.3.x as I expect there will be others like us who are stuck with 4.x by contract on a managed dedicated server, or those on shared servers. We are with Clara UK who do not upgrade PHP and MySQL beyond Redhat releases. If you want ver5 you have to change to another server.

Bob

[mhc1576]

Is there any utility to check if a plugin is PHP 5 compliant before doing the upgrade?

[Floris]

Is there any utility to check if a plugin is PHP 5 compliant before doing the upgrade?

Nope.