rfc:php7_57_roadmap

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PHP 7 and 5.7 roadmap

Introduction

Now that phpng has been merged to master, the way to php 7 is open. However there are many other points that need to be cleared before a final release can be done. Many feature developments have been suspended because of phpng, which was a moving target until now.

PHP major release is an unique opportunity to do a lot of things not possible in minor releases. Code cleanup, refactoring, adding new major features, etc. All these tasks cannot be done in minor releases and the work we do for a major release, and how we do it, define how PHP will look like for the next decade.

This is why it is critical, if not vital, to do not hurry up and be sure we do it right.

Proposal

As this time there are two positions about when we should try to release php 7 final:

  • within a year, no php 5.7
  • within 1.5 to 2 years, with 5.7

One year development and no 5.7

  • no risk to reproduce what happened with the php 6
  • Keep our limited resources on one release
  • There are enough new features in phpng to justify a major version
  • cleanups can be done later

One and year development and 5.7

  • Major versions are an unique opportunity to cleanup our code base
  • Major versions dictate what PHP will be in the next decade or more
  • It is unrealistic to consider than less than a year is enough to understand, stabilize and release a phpng based major version. Opcache alone took 300% more time than planed back then during the 5.5 release phase
  • There are a couple of major features that are long due, RFCs are in progress (bigint, AST, other like getter/setter, unicode string class annotation may resurface)

Proposed PHP Version(s)

  • PHP 7
  • PHP 5.7

RFC Impact

No impact on existing extensions, code, etc. This is purely a planing RFC.

Open Issues

TBD

Proposed Voting Choices

Development period for php 7
Real name One year One and half year
Final result: 0 0
This poll has been closed.


PHP 5.7 (as an exception to our well defined release process)
Real name yes no
Count: 0 0


The RFC is considered approved with 50%+1 acceptance.
The vote starts on May 13th 2014 and ends on May 20th 2014 due to the issues with the mailing lists, the vote period is extended till May 26th 2014.

References

TBD

Rejected Features

TBD

rfc/php7_57_roadmap.1408109127.txt.gz · Last modified: 2017/09/22 13:28 (external edit)