[wp-hackers] php -v

[Eric Mann]

>
> If core still can work on 5.2 then that is the requirement. It’s stupid to
> say that it’s 5.3 when it still can run fine on 5.2.


You're missing the point. Core can still work on 5.2 *because* 5.2 is the
minimum requirement. It would be "stupid" to put a feature that requires
5.3 into core because it would be rejected out of hand by committers since
it would, you guessed it, make it so that core will not run on the minimum
required version.

So long as 5.2 is the minimum requirement, core will *always* run on at
least 5.2.  We have to raise the requirement before we can start putting
5.3 (or 5.4 or 5.5) code into core.


> FWIW, I did a random sampling of some 3.7.1 API requests, and that too showed
> about 50% of users on 5.2.17


Would be nice if we could update the stats page to make this kind of
information publicly available. Would help us (developers) better target
our code and would go miles in helping to tone down the attitude of this
kind of conversation in the future.

It's also pretty unlikely that we start rewriting pieces of WP to use 5.3+
> features.


Agreed. But the ability to start writing *new* features for WP using 5.3+
code features would be beneficial.  I like our backwards compatibility and
it's one of the reasons WordPress is so powerful. But as we add new
features into core it would be fantastic if we could write them using, say,
namespaces to isolate the new functionality from workarounds/hacks/poor
code already present in themes and plugins that implement said features in
their own way.

The (perhaps unofficial) policy that I recall is that we can try out 5.3+
> features as a sort of progressive enhancement that's only available to 5.3+
> users as a sort of enticement.


This. I really like this idea. Would be fairly easy to expose a
PHP_BLEEDING or similar constant in core and use that as a switch to turn
on/off enhanced (new) features. My hesitation here is the same as Helen
pointed out earlier - most end users have no idea what PHP is, how it
works, what version they're running, or how to upgrade.  By hiding new
features behind a versioned wall, we're introducing a world where WordPress
is advertised to have X feature, but when Jimmy Blogger clicks the
auto-install button on his hosting dashboard, X feature is nowhere to be
found.  He'll blame WordPress, not his host, for the discrepancy.