[Info-vax] OT: Elephants Can't Dance

[Arne Vajhøj]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <49c6e70f$0$90268$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
> 	Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> I deal in the Open Source world at work (due mostly to budget constraints)
>>> and nothing annoys me more than having students and faculty come to me
>>> with a request that we run out and grab (and install int he middle of the
>>> semester!) the latest and greatest version of a product who's update
>>> cycle is measured in days.  Why do the want the new one?  Does it fix a
>>> problem they were having?  Does it offer a feature they absolutely need?
>>> Of course not, but it's the newest version and we should be running it.
>>> I am working on a new web server right now.  They want it to include the
>>> latest version of PHP.  Which breaks every one of their PHP based web
>>> pages!!
>> Learn them to write better PHP.
> 
> There is no such thing as "good PHP".

If it delivers good functionality for low cost then most people would
consider it good.

>                                        It is a major security problem and
> the antithesis of Software Engineering.

There has been relative few security bugs in PHP itself.

And dynamic typed languages is rather popular in software
engineering today.

>> Newer versions of PHP is relative good compatible with
>> older versions.
> 
> Real world experience would seem to contradict that.  Every time we have
> had to move to a newer version of PHP is has broken pretty much all the
> code the faculty use on their web pages.

That sounds very weird.

That does not reflect my experience.

Could you give examples of code that broke from a specific PHP
version to another PHP version ?

PHP code should run fine unless the code relied on magic_quotes_gpc
or register_globals being on.

>> What breaks is when code relied on features that has been declared
>> problematic security wise for years and finally get disabled
>> system wide by an upgrade.
>>
>>> What ever happened to "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
>> It still exist.
>>
>> But there is also "There only two types of systems: those
>> being actively developed and those declared dead".
> 
> I would think people in this group might disagree with that sentiment.

Possible.

Arne