On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 3:10 AM, Tim Starling <tstarl...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I don't think JSON support is particularly important since it can
> easily be simulated, and I don't think you should use the filter
> extension in MediaWiki, regardless of whether it is supported.
>

I agree about filter. Having native JSON support is a nicety
though, it's faster than a userland implementation.

> However, I can think of a good argument for moving to PHP 5.2, which
> is to stop the high rate of bit rot in 5.1 support. In particular,
> support for callbacks with double-colons to indicate static method calls:
>
> call_user_func( 'Foo::bar' )
>
> was added in PHP 5.2.3. Developers often use these, and don't realise
> that they are breaking PHP 5.1 support. So I think there's a good
> argument for making 5.2.3 the minimum.
>

+1 here. a::b syntax is less keystrokes having to use an array. Also
lets us remove the stupid hack from r68760[0] (probably similar things
elsewhere in the code)

> Another example of bit rot: the trunk has 3 calls to
> array_fill_keys(), with no simulation in GlobalFunctions.php; it was
> added in 5.2.0. Developers should really check the versions in the
> manual when they use a function, otherwise 5.2.x will soon be broken
> as well, in favour of 5.3.x. But in theory we can weed out calls to
> newly-added functions with grep. The 5.2.3 callback change was more
> subtle.
>

Other reasons 5.2 is cool:
- setcookie() allows httponly cookies (we conditionally support this)
- __toString() works properly
- Memory management improved
- Lots of other stuff here [1]

The consensus last time we brought this up (November) was fairly
strong that we can start phasing out 5.1 support. After talking again
on IRC with people today, I think we can safely break 5.1 in trunk
(although lets not backport it).

Once the 1.17 release is out, we should find a way to better update
[2] so we can indicate that 1.17 will be the last release with 5.1
support.

-Chad

[0] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/68760
[1] http://php.net/migration52
[2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_requirements

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