[wp-hackers] php -v

[Andrew Nacin]

On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Ian Dunn <ian at iandunn.name> wrote:

> On 11/8/13 8:36 AM, Eric Mann wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> What if instead of hiding the feature, we replaced it with a short
> explanation? So, if they have 5.3+ then the screen for Feature X works like
> normal, but if they don't then the screen will still appear in menus, etc,
> but when the user visits the page they'll see a paragraph saying something
> like, "Your server is running a very old version of PHP, and it is not
> capable of supporting Feature X. Please contact your hosting company or
> administrator and ask them to upgrade your site to the latest version of
> PHP."
>

First: as summarized in my previous post to this thread, I've yet to be
shown anything we'd want to build in 5.3+ only that we couldn't also easily
build for 5.2.

Second: Many of our users have extremely limited knowledge of their setup.
That includes not knowing what PHP is, or not realizing there is a
difference between their domain and their hosting, or not even remembering
who their host is, or being the "administrator" but having no clue about
any of this, including who to contact. It is not fair to them to present
them with a frustrating and highly technical problem and then ask them to
pass the buck to who-knows-who. We owe it to 20 percent of the Internet to
suck it up and absorb our technical debt so users don't have to. Passing on
technical problems to users is the antithesis of what we believe.

Third: But whether they do or not, we do not screw with our users like
this. WordPress is not a protest piece.

Further reading:
 * http://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/
 * http://ma.tt/2007/07/on-php/
 * http://nacin.com/2010/09/29/on-php-redux/

Nacin