PHP 5.1.0 Released

kv9 writes "A new release of PHP5 is available. This version includes over 400 bugfixes, performance improvements over the 5.0.x branch, new date handling code, new versions of PCRE/SQLite/PEAR and over 30 new core/extension functions. A number of security fixes are also present and users are recommended to upgrade."

Comments

mySQL support

[Anonymous Coward]

MySQL support has been droped in favor of using simple flat text files. The performance increase from this has been HUGE and the feature set is the same.

Beware of PHP 5.1

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have any classes named Date, do you? It's an extremely uncommon name. Good thing we have namespaces.

http://news.php.net/php.internals/20352

Bug fixes should go into 5.0.x

[halfnerd]

I was under the impression that when using a x.y.z -versioning scheme, bug fixes should be released with increments of z, new features with increments of y, unless they break compatibility, when x should be increased. But when has even PHP done some something in a standard way.

Adding even more functions?

[A beautiful mind]

"(...)and over 30 new core/extension functions."

Ugh. Adding still to the inconsistent, namespace mess, PHP functions have? Worst. Decision. Ever.

Re:Backgrounds of the PHP developers.

[Elrac]

The Zend guys happen to be damn good programmers - have a look at the code of the interpreter

That sentence illustrates the problem and your lack of understanding of it.

Design and programming are two distinct disciplines. Some brilliant developers are good at both, but many people, myself included, get too much satisfaction from diving into coding to thoroughly think about what they are embarking on. The result is a program/system/language/whatever that starts with a clean small core but grows ever bigger and uglier as changes are bolted on. I tried PHP a couple years back and was disgusted by it. There's a reason why computer language design is a discipline of an academic subject, Computer Science: A wealth of knowledge has accumulated on how to do this kind of thing "right," and applying that knowledge will usually lead to a better end result.

Specifically, my beef with PHP summarizes down to: It makes simple things simple in a way that encourages sloppy coding. PHP is to the current would-be Web geek generation what BASIC was to teenage would-be hotshot coders in the late '80s: A way to achieve "gee whiz!" effects easily and cheaply. It's possible to write large, elegant programs in PHP, but that's not what usually happens.