Let’s get one thing straight: I may be conservative in my philosophy, but I’m not a relic. I don’t long for the days of PHP 4, nor do I think clinging to outdated code is a sign of virtue. If you’re still running your projects on PHP 7.x or worse, it’s time to face the truth: you’re not preserving tradition — you’re sabotaging your own future.
I’ve been in this game long enough to remember when using object-oriented programming in PHP 4 felt like loading lead bullets into a musket. Sure, it worked — technically — but it was so inefficient that developers were punished for writing clean, maintainable code. PHP 5 changed that, slowly. PHP 7 made performance a priority. But it’s PHP 8.x, especially the upcoming 8.4, that finally feels like a language worthy of disciplined craftsmanship.
Some of my clients have asked, “Aren’t newer PHP versions kind of… woke?” No. Just because your favorite sloppy plugin broke doesn’t mean the language is broken — it means it finally stopped tolerating garbage. Every time I’ve seen a plugin collapse under a new version, my reaction hasn’t been “this update is too aggressive.” It’s been:
“How TF was it okay to code like that?”
PHP is cleaning up its act, and it’s long overdue. Deprecated functions? Good. Silenced errors? Gone. Lazy global scope pollution? Not tolerated anymore. Every step forward has made PHP more like the language we always wished it were — fast, modern, reliable.
So here’s my recommendation:
-
Upgrade to PHP 8.4 as soon as it’s stable.
-
Use object-oriented code, always.
-
Use namespaces.
-
Abandon procedural spaghetti and inline SQL
-
And for the love of logic, stop using
eval()— it’s evil.
And while we’re at it:
If you’re still writing endif; and endforeach; like it’s 2003, stop. That’s the PHP equivalent of using goto in C. You think it makes you look old-school, but all it does is signal that your codebase is a historical reenactment.
The future of PHP is stricter, faster, and more principled. It’s about time. Embrace it. Clean code is masculine code. Structured thinking is strong thinking. And mastering a language means keeping up with its growth — not mourning the death of bad habits.
No more excuses. No more nostalgia for the Wild West of PHP 4.
PHP 8.4 is here, and it’s the best the language has ever been.
