[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #62622: Bump minimum PHP version to 7.4

[WordPress Trac]

#62622: Bump minimum PHP version to 7.4
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 Reporter:  justlevine                |       Owner:  johnbillion
     Type:  enhancement               |      Status:  accepted
 Priority:  normal                    |   Milestone:  6.9
Component:  General                   |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                    |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch has-unit-tests  |     Focuses:
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Comment (by justlevine):

 > Let's hold off on this for 6.9 but revisit after.

 @matt is there a particular reason or concern that you're able to share?
 Perhaps there's a middle ground or a different way we as contributors can
 address it?

 As I see it:

 - The current v7.2 limitation is becoming more and more of a tooling
 headache (which makes it an AI Agent headache too), and the ability to
 start [https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.declarations.php
 inlining class properties] also has a _huge_ impact on AI accuracy (both
 for core contributions and usage).
 - 7.4+ is a [[https://github.com/WordPress/php-ai-client/issues/3 mostly
 non-negotiable prerequisite] for the PHP AI Client, and will also either
 slow development/adoption on the MCP/Abilities API/Experiments or become a
 blocker on getting them into core.

 Conversely,
 - The work to bump is negligible and (AFAIK) already done
 - We have ~4 months to announce the bump in advance. We've never had that
 much lead time to warn people.
 - Waiting to WP7.0 means the earliest it'll start to have a real effect is
 WP7.1, which is a lifetime in the current era of subsidized-compute LLMs.

 My educated guess from previous trends says v6.9 is the difference between
 us being able to hit a minimum PHP8.0 by WP v7.5 - which (assuming AI
 doesn't ''completely'' upend things and/or we don't decide to leave behind
 5% of the web) will be critical by that point.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62622#comment:32>
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