As my buddy says, “Friends don’t let friends code in PHP.” The funny thing is all of my friends, including him, are all heavily invested in PHP in one way or another. Instead of this being about PHP 7, perhaps it should be about friendships. Maybe some other time.
The long awaited release pf PHP 7 finally happened on December 3, 2015, and there was a decent buzz at WordCamp US 2015 this past weekend. There were plenty of hosting companies at the event, and I felt a heavy push (from developers) to highlight the performance increase PHP 7 is supposed to bring. Possibly they were encouraging the hosting vendors into a little competition. Aside from just performance, PHP 7 does address some syntax pain-points, but we will see if it will also be a preferred language of choice in an emerging ecosystem of decoupled and asynchronous applications.
There have been thorough posts about all things PHP 7, so rather than add to the mix I wanted point out the articles I have been using as we upgrade our own applications. This is part of a “curated search” series on our blog to help condense resources for larger topics. We’ll see how it goes.
The Definitive PHP 7.0 & HHVM Benchmark
By Mark Gavalda
With all the performance buzz, this was the first article I found. This benchmarking post looks at the PHP projects (WordPress, Drupal, and Magento), HHVM, and PHP 7. There are also some good links to performance testing tools in the post.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting: PHP 7
By Davey Shafik
This overview by Davey Shafik does a great job going over the changes in PHP 7 and what depreciated code you need to look for before trying to upgrade. The bonus is it is a two-part series, Thanks Davey!
The good people at Digital Ocean have also posted a quick overview of our subject. Partly from a hosting perspective they highlight the performance increase.
I am sure there will be plenty more written about PHP 7 in the coming weeks and months. PHP has been a magnificent language for many years, and for developers like me, a launchpad into amazing opportunities. It has been an easy to learn language with an accessible and friendly community. I am hoping it will power applications for years to come.
It would be great to know what you guys think and if there are other resources you have used to start adopting the new version, or dare I say, finding a new friend.
