Public plugin PHP Version about gutenberg-ramp HOT 7 CLOSED

Yah of all @justnorris 's reasons here, I find:

• Gutenberg, Core, Classic Editor all "allow" PHP 5.2.4 - Ramp would be the odd one out here

to be the most compelling. If there's a realistic prospect of this plugin being folded into Gutenberg core, then I think we have no choice. I'd like to propose we put this on hold until after we talk to the GBerg core people at Napa next week. If there's a chance that we'll need to fold this into the main codebase for Gutenberg, then we should apply this patch. If not. then I'd honestly prefer not to.

from gutenberg-ramp.

I usually wouldn't suggest using an old PHP version, but since this is a plugin intended to improve Gutenberg compatibility for all sites - we might have to go for core-compatibility.

I know we discussed this on the call today, but I really don't like having to accommodate insecure unsupported versions of PHP. It seems that Gutenberg itself supports even 5.2.4, but does Ramp have to? I guess it might, but I just wanted us to gut-check this before we commit to not including newer language features. After all we are are primarily building this for VIP, which is obviously not on 5.2.4, and something just bothers me about abdicating our leadership role by accommodating ancient PHP for users that probably don't exist. (ie: I'd be shocked if anyone who is on 5.2.4 tries to use our plugin.)

That said, if there's any universe in which this becomes part of Gutenberg, then I suppose we might still consider it.

This is an interesting, related, ticket that got me thinking about this: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40934

from gutenberg-ramp.

Likewise, I have qualms about supporting old PHP versions past EOL period. My personal view is that software leaders should encourage users to update old and insecure technologies, and that dropping support at official EOL should be the default position unless there's a really good reason to extend it. If Ramp is rolled into core at some point that might be a good enough reason, but it is not the case right now.

Additionally, my experience of old php versions in plugins is in line with @justnorris 's observations here. - it's a tiny percentage of users on versions older than PHP 5.4 and when I've dropped support on my plugins I received zero complaints/issues.

from gutenberg-ramp.

I feel weird arguing for PHP 5.2 support, especially because I think that VIP plugins shouldn't support anything less than 5.6. I really want plugins to be the PHP version upgrade drivers, as @maevelander noted - I already have a whole blog post on it :)

However...
I think this is the sort of plugin that should be PHP 5.2 compatible for several reasons:

• Ramp for Gutenberg has almost no benefit of requiring PHP 5.6/5.4 apart from syntactic sugar.
• The target audience of the plugin, at least in part, are people who might move a bit slower than everyone else to adapt newer tech (like Gutenberg) and possibly newer environments (like un-outdated PHP versions)
• Gutenberg, Core, Classic Editor all "allow" PHP 5.2.4 - Ramp would be the odd one out here
• If we'd drop PHP 5.2 support, we'd have to fail gracefully (similar to my Co- Authors-Plus pull-request) - that's additional code anyway, at least for now. There is chatter in WordPress core to respect the "Requires PHP" tag and prevent users from installing plugins that don't support the specified PHP version. Unfortunately - currently you can install a PHP 5.4 plugin and crash your site because you didn't know any better, which is why I think plugins that don't support a certain PHP version must fail gracefully and perform a PHP check.

I too dislike supporting an outdated, insecure PHP version, but I think that this time we might have to. Especially because it's just as easy to support 5.2 for now as it is to implement a graceful fallback.

from gutenberg-ramp.

I'd like to propose we put this on hold until after we talk to the GBerg core people at Napa next week. If there's a chance that we'll need to fold this into the main codebase for Gutenberg, then we should apply this patch. If not. then I'd honestly prefer not to.

Agreed. Removing from public release milestone. We'll revisit this when the future becomes clearer around wpcom and core integration.

from gutenberg-ramp.

1000+ installs and no complaints or requests for older PHP support. Closing.

from gutenberg-ramp.

For future reference, the current PHP requirement for this plugin is stated in the readme as PHP 5.5.

from gutenberg-ramp.