[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #51043: PHP: bump minimum version requirements

[WordPress Trac]

#51043: PHP: bump minimum version requirements
-----------------------------+-------------------------
 Reporter:  jrf              |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  task (blessed)   |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  high             |   Milestone:
Component:  General          |     Version:
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:  maybelater
 Keywords:  has-patch early  |     Focuses:
-----------------------------+-------------------------

Comment (by ayeshrajans):

 PHPUnit maintainer has mentioned that PHPUnit 9.3 will be the only version
 that supports PHP 8.0, and I think it is a good call on Sebastian because
 the sheer amount of changes in PHP 8 that makes it quite difficulty
 maintain at the size of PHPUnit.

 7.1 is a good compromise between supporting old versions and adding PHP 8
 support. I'm sure @jrf has spent a lot of effort in finding the right
 balance.

 In comparison, Drupal and Symfony, which often maintains support for older
 PHP versions for a quite while (Drupal 7 still supports PHP 5.2 for the
 most part), have moved to a PHP 7.1 and 7.3 minimum versions.

 WordPress 5.4 + 5.5 usage is about 48%, which I believe the expected
 percentage of those who will eventually upgrade to 5.6. On the PHP stats
 front, PHP 5.6 and 7.0 usage is 25.5% in total. This means that
 realistically, and using likely unfair math, we will be leaving ~12% of
 users behind who might upgrade to WordPress 5.6, but still have an older
 PHP version.

 I'm not a decision maker for WordPress, but as a contributor, I'm all in
 support for this version bump. This also opens up a whole new world of
 opportunities to make this change worth it in terms of security,
 performance, and code maintainability.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51043#comment:13>
WordPress Trac <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/>
WordPress publishing platform