On Oct 11, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Julien Pauli wrote: > My example was http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.predefined.php > > I have other examples of what I globally mean, these kinds are recurrent : > > - "Note: The null type was introduced in PHP 4." > - "Warning : Before PHP 4.3.0, appending to an array in which the > current maximum key was negative would create a new key as described > above. Since PHP 4.3.0, the new key will be 0." > - The whole chapter # Object Aggregation — Object > Aggregation/Composition [PHP 4] > - http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php has lots of > PHP4 history like "session.gc_divisor ; Available since PHP 4.3.2." > - "PHP supports CLI SAPI since PHP 4.3.0" > - "Note : In PHP 4.0.3 and older, in order to use URL wrappers, you > were required to configure PHP using the configure option > --enable-url-fopen-wrapper ." > - "Note : The Windows versions of PHP earlier than PHP 4.3 did not > support remote file accessing for the following functions : XYZ" > - "Note : Heredoc was added in PHP4" > > etc... > > What I mean is that, yes we should keep an history because its > interesting to know what things happen, and when. But that history > *should be kept in a specific part of the doc*, and *not* in the > actual reference manual (regarding PHP4 at least) > > 99% of users visiting function or language specific pages of the > manual dont care about the NULL type having spawned in PHP4, or that > PHP supports CLI since 4.3.0. They are just looking for some info for > their code and they are often disturbed while grabbing info by some > "PHP4.X.Y things that are not here anymore in PHP4.XX.YY but back in > PHP5" so yes, we are in PHP5, why that sentence ?. > > We should keep an history, but in a specific chapter. People today > dont write code under PHP4, they *at least* maintain PHP4 apps alive, > but dont work on PHP4 code anymore. > > Now about PHP5, it could be the same for 5.0 or even 5.1. We should > have a debate about that as we can still see some PHP5.1 (RedHat) > apps, but talking about PHP4 : it just keeps the reading heavy and > sometimes even boring.
There are two overlapping routes we can take here (and I'm sure others too): (A) Remove [most] all references to PHP 4. - This means we remove all the examples you showed because PHP 4 falls into the category of PHP 3. It's just PHP. In other words, PHP always had NULL, and foreach() always existed. (B) Make PHP 5 a first class citizen. - This means we talk about PHP 5 as PHP, so never have "As of PHP 5" because PHP 5 is the present. This however still means we keep track of PHP 4. Although I used to lean towards (B), I think it's time we go with (A). This means all PHP 4 history is moved to a single location, with PHP 3 being an example: - http://php.net/manual/php3.php One concern is comparing the PHP 4 version with the current 4->5 migration guide. We don't want to lose anything, and because the migration guide doesn't cover PHP 4.x.x specific changes there will be two documents: (1) The 4->5 migration guide and (2) PHP 4 version specific changes. Does this sound reasonable? Regards, Philip
