[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #33381: Strategize the updating of minimum PHP version.

[WordPress Trac]

#33381: Strategize the updating of minimum PHP version.
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 Reporter:  alexander.rohmann                    |       Owner:  jorbin
     Type:  enhancement                          |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal                               |   Milestone:  Awaiting
Component:  General                              |  Review
 Severity:  normal                               |     Version:
 Keywords:  needs-codex dev-feedback 2nd-        |  Resolution:
  opinion                                        |     Focuses:
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Comment (by chris@…):

 Replying to [comment:107 jdgrimes]:
 > One of WordPress's development philosophies is the 80% rule. Any feature
 that doesn't benefit 80% of users doesn't belong in core. While that is
 about user-facing features, can't we at least agree that the same type of
 logic really has to be applied here at some point?

 Unfortunately the corollary to that is that the 20% should be able to be
 made up by plugin developers and themers.

 > Right now we are holding the entirety of WordPress core hostage to 5% of
 users.

 I assume that the 5% means the 5.2 people, right? So were basically
 talking about using namespaces and anonymous functions in core files?
 That's really the two big changes between 5.2 and 5.3 (unless you count
 `goto`) and doesn't really seem to be a deal breaker to me.

 All of my code targets PHP 7 unless I have a specific client request or
 I'm making an public plugin, so I personally want to up these numbers,
 too. But core's perspective is that those percentages, even if they seem
 small to us, actually turn into a lot of customers and those customers, in
 various manners, turn into dollars.

 Putting a PHP version check in a plugin in activation/load (since PHP
 versions can change on the fly) is probably the safest and easiest thing
 to do.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/33381#comment:109>
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