I know L8 has got some criticisms lately, mainly in regards to the UI package. I wanted to change gears and write something positive about L8.
L8 requires PHP 7.3. This is actually awesome - and heres why. PHP used to be in a bad state where tons of libraries and packages were still using ancient versions, which slowed down progress immensely.
When Laravel, the largest PHP framework, and one of the biggest web frameworks, forces people to use up-to-date versions of PHP, it forces everyone to embrace newer versions and is a great thing for the PHP ecosystem as a whole.
I agree with you. I gave up on WordPress because they are extremely bad about never bumping minimum requirements.
I see the approach, but it then forces other software to break . . . remember the issues from Laravel upgrades when PHP introduced a new keyword and broke things. It’s better now than the old days of PHP 3/4/5 but still.
i personally think thye should have upped it to 8.0 😀
If php are making older versions eol then they shouldn’t be supported by Laravel. I think it’s a good thing forcing updates.
slowed down progress immensely? What?
My difficulty is when the enterprise distributions support 7.3 in their trusted repos but not the 7.3 versions of key libraries like apcu. I suppose it’s easy to say well update to a newer linux version but the infrastructure teams don’t always move at the same pace as the software development teams do. Then the cyber teams get involved and frown at the workarounds (3rd party repo, installing gcc and compiling from source on prod or hosting that compiled source somewhere in a private repo).
I’m a dev I just want my shit to work, the infrastructure person also just wants their shit to work and the cyber folks as well but their idea of working has nothing to do with the software solution being implemented and running smoothly.
Honestly though, unless you are a large enough entity to be releasing your own security support for php 7.2 no one should be supporting after November.
> When Laravel, the largest PHP framework, and one of the biggest web frameworks, forces people to use up-to-date versions of PHP, it forces everyone to embrace newer versions
Ehhh, not really. More like it forces people to stay on older versions of Laravel until their hosting has a PHP version that suits.