XOOPS goes PHP5
This is to announce that starting with XOOPS 3.0, we'll be supporting exclusively PHP 5.2 and up.
The XOOPS 2.3 will be our last release series supporting PHP4.
There are several reasons for doing this:
1) we have limited resources, so it's hard to keep maintaining two different platforms.
2) PHP5 offers many technical advantages, among them:
- Real opportunities for object oriented programming.
- Improved performance and a more accurate memory usage.
- Brand new XOOPS thinkings and development culture
- Better security through the filter extension.
- DateTime and DateTimeZone objects with methods to manipulate date/time information
- ZIP extension for creating and editing zip files.
- Hooks for tracking file upload progress were introduced (will let us write an accurate progress tracker for file uploads.)
We realize that currently there are still web hosts that might not support PHP5, however we believe that this is changing, and in the meantime, those of you who have only PHP4 will be still able to use XOOPS 2.3
This will also have impact on XOOPS Modules. We'll address it in two phases:
1) Identify most important XOOPS modules and work together with their developers to ensure PHP5 compatibility (while keeping PHP4 compatibility)
2) Provide a reference guide on how to rewrite XOOPS modules so they can run under XOOPS 3.0 in a PHP5 native mode to take full advantage of XOOPS 3.0 and PHP5.
This will be done by our Modules Team (in formation)
We would appreciate any and all feedback regarding the migration to PHP5. We're also looking for volunteers to help is in development of XOOPS 2.3, 3.0, and the module migration.
For more information about the move to PHP5 please visit www.gophp5.org
