On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Anthony Ferrara <ircmax...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Kris > > > I think you're forgetting though that the same applies to PHP itself. Many >> repos still default to PHP 5.1.x. Adoption always tends to be a lagging >> factor. I don't see any evidence to suggest that Drupal and other distros >> have even slower adoption rates than PHP. In fact, the opposite seems to >> be true from what I've observed. >> >> In other words, most of these people you referenced who are still using >> Drupal 6 are probably still using an older version of PHP as well. >> Therefore, most people using Drupal 7 probably don't have to worry about >> the deprecation because they haven't upgraded to 5.3.3+ yet. But it did >> affect enough people that it forced the Drupal devs to update their code >> to >> conform to the changes in PHP. >> >> We shouldn't be targetting future PHP releases to sync with older distros >> simply because many people still use them. Given that most people tend to >> use older versions of PHP as well, I believe it's safe to say that the two >> cancel one another out. >> > > In my opinion, this attitude is the exact wrong one for core to take. We > should be trying to make adoption easier and removing barriers to projects > and hosts upgrading, not relying on the fact that they don't to justify our > actions. > > If we make the lives easier for developers and hosts, then we won't have > the problems of lagging adoption. If we rely on the lagging adoption to > justify changes, then the circle feeds itself. > > We shouldn't be relying on slow adoption for ANY decision. By doing that, > we're ensuring slow adoption. And slow adoption hurts EVERYONE. It hurts us > from the standpoint that we need to maintain software longer (or at least > there's pressure to). It hurts us from the standpoint that feedback on new > versions is reduced significantly. It hurts developers in that they can't > take advantage of new features. It hurts developer because software doesn't > get fixed for a long time. It hurts projects because they can't take > advantage of new features for a long time. It hurts hosts in that they > can't take advantage of performance improvements (that are sometimes very > significant). > > The only group that benefits from long adoption cycles is the linux > distribution folks. Because the longer it takes for our stuff to get > adopted, the more it seems like their decision to have a long term version > sane. But if adoption of new versions is as seamless as possible, and easy > on everyone, then it makes that decision seem archaic and arbitrary. > > Low barriers means everyone wins. High barriers > just exacerbates everyone's pain. > > Let's push for low barriers... > > Anthony > I do agree with you in principle, Anthony. What I'm saying is that the reality !== the ideal. Slow adoption is just a fact of life. Every IT person I've ever worked with was trained to be cautious and to "go with what we know is stable and works, not with what's new." If distros like Drupal were to get fast adoption and we were to get fast adoption, then that would be super awesome. So long as out adoption rate isn't faster than theirs (which I don't think it would be even if we tried), then these barriers will not exist for most people because the distros will update themselves to conform to PHP long before they ever upgrade anyway. --Kris
