PHP not up to date?

**RobR** · 19th February 2007

I am wondering why so many of the web hosting companies don't keep PHP up to date.

I am currently looking for a new host, and would like to use a few PHP 5 functions, but am I being too stringent to only consider companies with PHP 5?

**adamsmith** · 19th February 2007

Most companies will offer a choice, maybe even both PHP4 and PHP5 on a single package

.

**Cranky** · 19th February 2007

You'll probably find many providers who don't advertise PHP5 are still able to offer it too. I'd suggest shopping around based on other requirements, and if you find someone you like if they only advertise PHP4 drop them an email and you may find they offer PHP5 too.

**RobR** · 19th February 2007

You'll probably find many providers who don't advertise PHP5 are still able to offer it too.

Why is this? Why not just say PHP 4 and 5? Or why not just regularly up date all PHP? Is there a need for PHP4 (isn't PHP5 backwards compatible?)?

**domtaylor** · 19th February 2007

Originally Posted by RobR

I am wondering why so many of the web hosting companies don't keep PHP up to date.

I am currently looking for a new host, and would like to use a few PHP 5 functions, but am I being too stringent to only consider companies with PHP 5?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess - maybe they reckon there's no need to use PHP5 as nobody's enquired, or it can't work on their systems, etc

**AndyGambles** · 19th February 2007

There are many old scripts that wont work on PHP5 and these are usually off the shelf freebies that are being used by users who do not know how to re-code for PHP5.

**James[UH]** · 20th February 2007

THIS USER HAS BEEN GAGGED BY THE FORUM HOSTS FOR SPAM OR BREAKING THE RULES...
User will be ungaged in around 91 hours from this post.

**UH-Matt** · 20th February 2007

All above is correct. If a host suddenly moved to PHP5 only, it would break a LOT of customers sites.

Better to stick with the latest version 4, or indeed offer both.

**othelloRob** · 20th February 2007

Originally Posted by RobR

(isn't PHP5 backwards compatible?)?

No, not even close - its why most of us offer clients the choice. Losts of LAMP development frameworks still have issues with PHP5

**RobR** · 20th February 2007

How annoying that PHP is not backwards compatible.

Interesting and informative to hear your views.

**Cranky** · 21st February 2007

It's practically not backwards compatible going from 4.x.x -> 4.x.y with the changes they make.

**domtaylor** · 21st February 2007

Originally Posted by Cranky

It's practically not backwards compatible going from 4.x.x -> 4.x.y with the changes they make.

Tell me about it :/

**LXJ** · 22nd February 2007

Originally Posted by othellotech

No, not even close - its why most of us offer clients the choice. Losts of LAMP development frameworks still have issues with PHP5

It is very backwards compatible actually, a few return values have changed but if you code properly that wouldn't affect you.

I don't know of any framework that still has issues with PHP5 (if there are any they are probably quite insecure anyway). God help you when PHP6 comes out

**RobR** · 22nd February 2007

I hope that all the O'Reilly books I have will keep me coding sweet. BRING ON PHP 6!

**LXJ** · 22nd February 2007

Originally Posted by RobR

I hope that all the O'Reilly books I have will keep me coding sweet. BRING ON PHP 6!

My PHP fix has been fulfilled since 5.1, I am a bit disappointed by Zend's choice of APC instead of eAccelerator in PHP6 as APC breaks a lot of things. Although PHP6 should in theory be more secure with buggy code.

I'm more interested in MySQL 5.1 becoming GA, a couple of MySQL clusters I run will benefit greatly.

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