So I have would like to update as I tend to keep my server environment as
modern as possible, but unfortunately it seems that PHP7 nor PHP7-FPM are
yet to be published to the Debain testing repository. Does anyone know if
there are any unofficial repositories for the packages?
On Mon, 7 Dec 2015, 16:44 Ray Paseur <ray.paseur(a)armedia.com> wrote:
Greetings, colleagues.
I took the PHP survey, so that part is done, but I'd like to weigh in on
some of the comments I've seen in this thread. I have read all of your
comments, and I agree with everything written here.
First and foremost, thanks to all who support the software and the
community. This mailing list gives me a welcome word every day.
I believe that using the latest software is almost always a good idea. We
are going to upgrade eventually - why deny ourselves the benefits of the
latest software by putting off the upgrades? The only argument in favor of
delay would be a breaking change, and this is something that the authors of
the software must publicize.
Second, I'm very empathetic to anyone who experiences troubles installing
products or doing upgrades. In the PHP world, we have worked hard to make
the major systems (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Laravel, etc.,) easy to
install and upgrade, and to clearly identify breaking changes from one
version to the next. It's almost axiomatic that breaking changes may not
occur from one release to the next. The PHP-FIG (Framework
Interoperability Group) has been instrumental in guiding our thinking on
this point.
PHP version 5, since PHP 5.3 has been pretty stable. I have not
experienced a breaking change at all, up through PHP 5.6+. I have
experienced deprecation warnings (mostly related to the antiquated MySQL
extension) but these warnings can be suppressed, allowing time for
developers to change to a supported database extension. This model of
"deprecation before abandonment" has proved very useful for those of us who
want to be up-to-date, and has given ample notice to those of us who want
to remain on old software.
PHP version 7 (there is no version 6) introduces breaking changes with the
removal of previously deprecated features. But it's also much faster and
has better language support for some modern design and coding techniques.
That said, it seems logical to me that future releases of MW should "just
work" with PHP 7. There may be a good bit of work between "should" and
"just works" but this seems like an enticing objective.
Some MW Extensions use PHP code that is PHP release-dependent. Finding
and catching these instances before installing a breaking change is not
easy. For example, consider a PHP 5.3 platform that needs the EmbedVideo
extension. There is a gotcha - EmbedVideo uses a PHP array notation that
is not supported in PHP 5.3. This is something that Composer is supposed
to help us with. Throughout the PHP community, the universal advice is "If
you're not using Composer yet, start using Composer!" Though I resisted
that advice for a couple of years, I've found Composer to be one of those
things like Git version control. It can save you much more than it costs
you. So I would encourage anyone reading this thread to consider Composer
and embrace it if possible. Perhaps greater publicity about Composer
should issue forth from the Foundation? Perhaps there should be a
community-standards requirement to use Composer to publish new or updated
versions of MS Extensions?
And on a slight tangent, but related... A native and naked installation of
MediaWiki should not be an inviting hacker target. We should be able to
download and install the software without having to think too much. Then
we should be able to extend update rights to our community according to our
community's needs. "Built by devs for devs" is so 2005. Less
configuration and more convention is a better paradigm for our future.
Again, thanks to all. I hope to see you in San Francisco,
Ray Paseur
Armedia, LLC
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