PHP 4.0 ????????????

[forrest]

When are we going to get PHP 4.0 on all the servers? To be more specific Dexter. That's where my site is located.

[Deb]

It'll happen but the "when" must be carefully selected.[nbsp][nbsp]There is a very large holiday season coming into full swing right now.[nbsp][nbsp]What we do need to avoid is causing any havoc on the servers that could potentially affect various shopping carts et al during their busiest time of the year.

Plans are in place -- It should happen within the next 120 days... There is potential for a first roll out prior to the Christmas season but due to the Christmas season is likely that the roll out will not be announced until the new year.

Deb
[nbsp]- What do you mean they upgraded Santa's Sled?!?!

[chrisheng]

And don't forget about giving us Dexter accounts
our dedicated IP addresses too... :-)

Chris.

[gdesclaux]

Do you plan to upgrade SEVEN to PHP4 (4.03pl1) also ?
Could we have access to your previsional calendar for this upgrade ? We have several websites on FutureQuest and it's very very unpleasant to have to support differents versions of our programs...

Thanks in advance

Guillaume[nbsp]

[Terra]

Yes, we plan on upgrading all servers to PHP4...[nbsp][nbsp]The release schedule will be announced once it is ready...

and it's very very unpleasant to have to support differents versions of our programs How odd, I thought that PHP3 and PHP4 were supposed to be somewhat compatible with one another...[nbsp][nbsp]This is our largest concern, in that we have over a thousand site owners dependent on the functionality of PHP3...[nbsp][nbsp]To just up and yank the tablecloth out from underneath of them, could lead to dishes crashing all around us...

To be blunt, I can deal with a handful of accounts that are displeased by the absence of PHP4 on the older servers
--OR--
I can deal with the support nightmare from **everyone** if the PHP3/4 migration does not go as planned...

Heath hath shown us the fury of one, I'd rather not multiply that out by everyone dependent on their web site to work exactly like they *expect* for which it does just fine in the here and now...
http://www.aota.net/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000636-1.html

It's also curious the recent emails asking us to just rip out the existing stable 3.22.x MySQL servers and upgrade them to 3.23.x...[nbsp][nbsp]Ah heck - no one will notice that the subtle differences between the releases will lead to difficult to isolate bugs and errors in their programs designed against the 3.22.x MySQL core...

All in all, it only leads to support emails screaming that they haven't touched a thing for over a month (or so) and now it's not working like it always has in the past...[nbsp][nbsp]If we explain that we've upgraded the core, then we are met with:
"Well, we didn't ask for that - nor do we need that![nbsp][nbsp]Please put it back the way it was!!!"

If we decline to do that, then we just end up losing another account because we just cannot make everyone happy no matter how *hard* we try...[nbsp][nbsp]:(

I surely hope you can understand our position for trying to maintain a stable feature set by proceeding cautiously...

--
Terra
--I fought way too hard in earning the rock-solid stability we have now--
FutureQuest

[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 12-13-00@3:09 pm)]

[Deb]

/me thawks TeRRa over the head...... snap out of it...it was only a dream :P

[Taelon]

I hope it's sooner rather than later. We have several scripts that we paid for which only work with php4 but we're stuck on a php3 server. Seriously considering switching to someplace else that does support it.

[Daniel Jackler]

Couldn't one move an account from one server to another?[nbsp][nbsp]That would solve the problem for those who really need PHP4, and not mess the accounts that don't.
Even if there is a fee, if they need it so much they probably won't mind paying.

Daniel

[Terra]

There are currently no provisions available to do that as the new servers are not fully backwards compatible with the older servers due to many various server core underpinnings...

Also, we have a delicate balance on the number of accounts per server in relation to the resources consumed...[nbsp][nbsp]The only time we will shift domains from server to server, is if the domain has outgrown the resources of the server it's on, but room is available on another server that has reduced it's client base through attrition...

Currently, RASMUS is full - and QBERT is nearing a new account setup freeze...[nbsp][nbsp]Our policy is that new servers, which are being populated with new accounts, cannot accept any migrated domains as we need to ensure that enough resources are available for a smooth growth...

But once again, I must state that the decision to migrate a domain is on an *emergency* basis - and not arbitrarily done just to increase the feature set for one domain...

--
Terra
--In a perfect world, all servers would share a common core throwing backwards compatibility to the wind--
FutureQuest

[smckaota]

This is a case when being a long and valued customer does not pay off (assuming its mainly older accounts that are affected).[nbsp][nbsp]As service providers you cannot really win.[nbsp][nbsp]Like other people I would like PHP4 but dread to think what impact it would have on my site (I experiment with lots of different ways of doing things).[nbsp][nbsp]One reason I recommend FutureQuest is that I feel I know why things are happening. In this case I can understand the PHP4 issue.

Stephen

[SneakyDave]

Could we set up a forum to discuss differences that people have found between PHP3 and PHP4? The php.net site doesn't list all the nuances, but if some of the main ones were documented, maybe the transition would go better.

Has anybody seen a list of incompatibilities?

[Terra]

We are already working on something similar, but it's not ready for prime time yet...

This would be the appropriate forum for discussing such things as it is named 'PHP 3 & 4 and/or MySQL'

Perhaps we should rename it to:
PHP 3 || 4 and/or MySQL

;)

--
Terra
--Precedence rules--
FutureQuest

[PaulKroll]

Has anybody seen a list of incompatibilities?
There's a page on http://www.php.net/version4/incompatibilities.php that details the "big" incompatibilites, but it's by no means ALL the incompatibilities.

[farlane]

Terra/Deb,

Now that the holiday season is mostly over, do you have any better idea when the 3 to 4 upgration will happen? I am another on old servers w/ FQ who would like to run some scripts that require PHP 4.
------------------
farlane aka andrew mcfarlane
http://www.leelanau.com/pages/farlane/

[Terra]

Yes...

Announcements will be made when the time is right and everything is ready...[nbsp][nbsp]Until then, I must decline all further comment...

--
Terra
--Change will come swift and deadly with no regard to sanity other than satisfaction--
FutureQuest

[drw]

Well, it appears we now have some sort of announcement, or at least an announcement of a forthcoming announcement, in the form of the QuestReport mailing list message sent out on New Year's Day:

<quoting now>

PHP3 to PHP4 -- All servers currently running PHP3 will be upgraded to the newer PHP4 engines.[nbsp][nbsp]If you currently use PHP3 you will want to pay extra special attention to this area of the upgrades.
-- To be announced within the Server News Forum soon.

<snip>

All of the above upgrades are planned for completion within January 2001

</quoting now>

As a site owner on ASTRO whose site is wholly dependent on PHP, I am very interested in the details of this upgrade.[nbsp][nbsp]And I'm excited that it's finally on its way.[nbsp][nbsp]I'm not chomping at the bit to add PHP4 functionality (yet), I'm just wanting to know ASAP what changes (if any) I will need to make to my scripts so that my site survives the upgrade.

Can anyone tell us yet what exact incarnation of PHP4 will be installed?[nbsp][nbsp]Is there any existing server with an identical installation (or at least, identical enough) that we can see a phpinfo() on?[nbsp][nbsp]I want to set up my development system here at home with the appropriate Apache/PHP4 setup so I can test my scripts ahead of time.

Any idea on when in January the changeover will take place?

And will the new PHP4 engine be installed with support for XML parsing?[nbsp][nbsp](chomp, chomp)

Thanks for whatever comments you can make,

David Williams

[dank]

As a site owner on ASTRO whose site is wholly dependent on PHP Isn't ASTRO already running PHP4?

Diversion

[Terra]

Even though I am not yet ready to release the PHP upgrade cycle yet, I can offer the following tidbits:

1) I am waiting for the Zend Optimizer to catch up with PHP 4.0.4
2) http://www.virginvinyl.com/phpinfo.php

I seriously doubt I will stray far from the existing configuration as it has proven to be solid...

--
Terra
--Stoked like a freightliner achieving to catch the Nexus--
FutureQuest

[heath]

Terra --

I know a team of web programmers that added the Zend Optimizer to a site that has a 110k include file on every page load and does extensive multi-dim array stuff, and multiple conditional's on every page as well.

Their benchmarks noted a 0 (yes ZERO) performance gain.

In fact, if the phpinfo() didn't spit out that the optimizer was present, these folks would swear it wasn't installed correctly.

Technically, I have no clue under what kind of situations it should show improvement.

The Zend Cache, on the other hand may indeed be the ticket.[nbsp][nbsp]There is an open source version of something similiar available (but doesn't work with the Zend Optimizer and I heard the the Zend Cache might not either).

The best way, bar none, to speed up a web sites performance (and kill CPU cycles) is to use the mod_gzip from APACHE or the similiar function within PHP4.

I honestly think that changing to php4 is a mistake -- and not just for selfish reasons -- whatever the case is -- if you compile php4 with gzip, you'd better watch out -- its a great technology (the browser uncompresses the page on the fly -- one reason yahoo's pages load so fast) -- but it will throttle your cpu to the max.

More free advice that's worth about what you paid for it...

Heath