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Ideas

Drop support for PHP 5.2

  1. Stephan Vierkant
    Member

    12345

    PHP 5.3 is declared End of Life as of 15 Aug 2014: http://php.net/eol.php. PHP 5.2 is declared End of Life for almost 4 years now, so I think it's time to say goodbye for a obsolete version of PHP.

    Dropping this very old version of PHP makes it easier to make themes and plugins for WordPress, because you can use newer functions and remove legacy code (which make the code easier to maintain and improve). PHP 5.3 introduces many useful features for themes, plugins and the WordPress core.

    Dear developers, please drop this version and share your thoughts about supporting libraries in general (php, mysql, etc.). I'm using Ubuntu and developing with Symfony2 as well and I love their transparency about support (i.e. LTS version).

    Posted: 2 years ago #

  2. Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)
    Administrator

    We're working on this right now :)

    Posted: 2 years ago #

  3. Bob Gregor
    Inactive

    Looking forward to being able to use namespaces without having to worry :-)

    Posted: 2 years ago #

  4. Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)
    Administrator

    You can already do this.

    Build your plugin to check first for PHP version on activation. PHP 5.2 == auto failure to activate.

    Now. Just because we drop support doesn't mean everyone will magically be on 5.3+.

    Notice our recommendations say 5.4: https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/

    But WP does run on 5.2 and that's likely to be true for a long time to come.

    Posted: 2 years ago #

  5. Andy Mercer
    Inactive

    Two years from "We're working on this right now", and nothing has happened. Can we change the status of this to "Maybe Later"?

    Posted: 5 months ago #

  6. Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)
    Administrator

    It's 'eventually yes.' We are working on it. We're waiting for the use of 5.2 to drop low enough.

    Posted: 5 months ago #

  7. withinboredom
    Inactive

    Instead of waiting to upgrade by attrition, why not just add a detector to deliver a notice if the php version is not high enough to upgrade to the next version? Then bump the version in the next upgrade?

    I'm sure PHP 5.2 usage would drop precipitously. Most hosting providers will do this for you transparently, and I'm sure most people on PHP 5.2 don't even know they're on it.

    Posted: 1 month ago #

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  • Rating

    12345
    11 Votes

  • Status

    Good idea! We're working on it

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