[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #53911: Test modernization backwards-compatibility backports to help security test backports and extenders with WordPress cross-version testing

[WordPress Trac]

#53911: Test modernization backwards-compatibility backports to help security test
backports and extenders with WordPress cross-version testing
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 Reporter:  hellofromTonya    |       Owner:  johnbillion
     Type:  task (blessed)    |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:  5.9
Component:  Build/Test Tools  |     Version:
 Severity:  normal            |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch         |     Focuses:
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Comment (by desrosj):

 After catching up here, my stance is that backporting to some degree is
 the correct move here. But I'm less clear on how far. Some rough thoughts
 in no particular order:

 - The main thing that made these changes required was supporting PHP 8
 (though cross-version support for PHPUnit is a plus for any version).
 - PHP 8 (beta) support was added in WP 5.6.
 - I don't think there is any responsibility for us to consider situations
 where plugins support PHP < 5.6. This support change was made in Core 2
 full years ago.
 - There seems to be a pretty big assumption here that plugins/extenders
 are testing against multiple branches of WordPress and PHP versions. While
 I'm sure some are, I think that many will be testing against `trunk` and
 maybe the latest 1 or 2 versions only.

 While the changes proposed to the 5.1 and older branches are pretty
 minimal, I think I would prefer to start with only backporting through WP
 5.2 as I'm not convinced it's necessary to go any further at this time.

 At first I was going to suggest only backporting to WP 5.6 (when PHP 8
 support was introduced), but WP 5.2 marked the beginning of the current
 PHP support policy with the exception of new versions of PHP released
 after the policy was created. That would allow extenders to test against 8
 versions of WP (5.2-5.8 + `trunk`).

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/53911#comment:23>
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