[wp-hackers] looking for opinions on php5-only plugins

[Michael Toppa]

Hi all,

I'm contemplating doing my future plugin work in PHP5, and I'd like to 
hear from others about this. I am a thorough-going OO programmer, and in 
my day job I've been programming in PHP 5 for years now. Switching back 
to the primitive OO features in PHP4 is always a mind-numbing 
experience. While the rule is that user support is more important than 
developer convenience, at what point must that give way to the fact that 
PHP4 hit its official end of life over a year ago? No more bug fixes, no 
more security fixes - if I were a hosting provider I'd feel awfully 
exposed if I hadn't upgraded by now. As for me, doing hours of new 
development work in an officially unsupported version of a language 
isn't exactly inspiring.
 
According to the Codex, "PHP 5 only features may be introduced in 
WordPress 3.0" - http://codex.wordpress.org/Switching_to_PHP5

So my specific questions are:

* Are there any current numbers out there on PHP5 adoption rates, 
especially among the hosting providers for WordPress users? All the 
general php5 adoption rate numbers I found online are from years ago and 
are out of date. Having a sense of how many users I might be leaving in 
the cold will be the key factor in my decision.

* Is there any sense of when WordPress 3.0 is coming? It would be 
helpful to know if my switching to PHP 5 for my plugins would put me 
ahead of WordPress itself in a timespan measured in months, vs. a 
timespan of years.

Thanks!

Mike T
http://www.toppa.com