I would be surprised if users reacted in any way. Most people would not even notice since there is nothing that a user needs to do to 'migrate'.

The article suggest that migration for a user would be dramatic, but in what way? Most people who might only be considered 'users' (as opposed to developers) rarely digest PHP in another other form except through their browsers (in the form of a web page).

There isn't anything to migrate ... everything happens on the server side, not the user (client) side.

Or perhaps I'm missing something...

I don't see any purpose to keeping the PHP4 stream alive. PHP5 has all of the important features of PHP4. As well it fixes and changes decisions which are no longer a good idea such as the annoying register globals directive.

The OO is an extension to PHP, but does not overwrite any of the existing structured functions already in PHP.

Keeping PHP4 alive would be a step backwards, stiffling a languages development because some users "don't really need those features" isn't really the point of upgrading a language.

I say grow up PHP4 "users", it's all documented in the PHP reference manual.

@Kevin, perhaps I wasn't clear and didn't help my case....

My definition of PHP users != most people's definition of user. My bad. I was trying to make a distinction between who write PHP, but really only in a cursory fashion. Maybe I should have said "PHP developers who are less skilled" vs. PHP developers (i.e. someone with true development skills).

My apologies for the confusion

You still don't give a reason why any users of PHP will be affected by the change, PHP5 is simply a new version, it is very unlikely to break anything unless you are someone who writes bad or broken code. The only updates that might break normal average everyday simple php scripts are very very easy to fix if you can read.

I understand that a lot of servers have stuck with PHP4 but really you only need to try PHP5 and fix anything that breaks... its not rocket science.

@edg, for some who write PHP (but are nowhere close to being programmers), it can be rocket science...

Say a less skilled PHP coder (such as myself) started with something as simple as a login script I found on the interweb. Then, I made a bunch of changes to it. I move the larger application that this login script is being used in, and bingo, bango, something breaks. I might be able to fix the problem, or I might not. It's a headache...

@savio : If your code breaks, its because the code itself is bad. Properly using php4 globals, or an obsolete extension. These changes occur because there is usually an issue with the "old" way of doing things. Regular code maintenance is not unusual in the programming area, as improvments are made over time. Reading the PHP migration guides tells you a listing of all differences between versions. Using those guides, it will be a simple matter to go through and replace anything they mention with the new code.

And i don't want to sound critical, but the majority of programming is a headache, thats why people program, because they enjoy the challenge. If migrating your code is a headache, wait till you try assembler :P