Requirements

[nilshoerrmann]

The development of Symphony Next will take quite a while and we already decided to start browser support with the latest available versions currently available (which is IE10+ for example).

What about other requirements? I know that @brendo has high hopes in leaving PHP 5.2 behind. But what about PHP 5.3? Would it be an idea to skip this version and start with PHP 5.4? (I know that Laravel is PHP 5.3+, but we should be prepared for the future not the present.)

[iwyg]

I would opt for 5.4. 5.5 is in beta state and 5.3 is pretty old. So lets start with the latest stable release.

[iwyg]

And yes, traits are very nice. Also the fixed closure scope.

[jonmifsud]

I would think using the latest versions would be a good idea; thinking that it wouldn't be complete in the short term php 5.3 would start being phased out by the time Symphony Next is finished.

[brendo]

Laravel's minimum is 5.3.7, so in my mind, it makes sense to mirror that, source

[iwyg]

Not necessarily. We would benefit in not supporting 5.3 at all. There're a lot of great features we couldn't use for a long time when supporting php 5.3. So I'm with @rowan-lewis here. Keep in mind that when "next" is in a state to be released, php 5.5 will be the current stable version.

[ijy]

Initially a PHP 5.4 minimum sounded a bit bleeding edge but on reflection I'd tend to agree. The use of things like traits and closures will keep the code base modern and will probably amount to less code to do the same thing. With considerations to where things will be when this version is ready I don't think it will be a problem as PHP 5.4 should be commonplace. Supporting only the more modern technologies will certainly help in the time it takes to ship and maintain going forward.

[designermonkey]

5.3.7 for me I'm afraid.

[iwyg]

because?

[brendo]

I'll double back. Thinking about it more, if we're stuck dealing with legacy PHP5.3 issues like we have been with PHP5.2 I'll want to scratch my eyes out, so taking into consideration the timeframe for a likely release, lets go with PHP5.4. A PHP5.5 RC is expected in May so everyone is quite right, it's like PHP5.5 is out when Next is.

@designermonkey Am I right in assuming this is because your hosting platform hasn't made the jump to PHP5.4 yet?

[designermonkey]

Yes it is, but I manage our hosting so it's not a real biggie. And from a general hosting point of view though, we are all seeing what PHP versions are on hosting out there.

Lets just hope they keep up (doubtful).

[s-e]

Personally, I'm absolutely in favour of Symphony focusing on 5.4, and as a user and advocate I'd be pretty disappointed if it didn't make that jump.

Just to add to some of Rowan's info.

Debian 7 (Wheezy) is at Release Candidate 1 stage, currently includes 5.4-4.14
Release target is 4th/5th of May 2013.

Ubuntu has a 6 monthly rolling release schedule. The next Long Term Support is due April 2014 as Rowan pointed out. However, PHP 5.4 has been included in the rolling since 12.10 released in October 2012.

CentOS and RHEL follow nearly identical release patterns, RHEL 7 is due for beta at some point in the next few months. However, RHEL/CentOS 6.3 does have PHP 5.4 upgrades available via external repos in Yum.

By this time next year (which seems to be the unofficial release target for Next from what I'm reading), every major hosting distro will have 5.4 by default with support options, and hopefully shared webhosts will keep up. Those of us switching to VPS options - which are getting cheaper by the minute - and starting to migrate away from the sometimes painful shared model, well, we won't even have to worry about that 👯.

[tonyarnold]

Even Dreamhost supports PHP 5.4. Not that I think you guys should even be using– 💥 👻

[iwyg]

so, is it settled then?

[allen]

As far as I'm concerned this is settled. We should be targeting PHP 5.4 as our base requirement.

[iwyg]

traits, here I come…

[brendo]

Here's a relevant Wiki article showing a stick in the stand, https://github.com/symphonycms/symphony-next/wiki/Requirements

[iwyg]

Maybe we should also add a list of recommendations. But that's a bit premature.

[iwyg]

Starting to get familiar with AngularJS and I'm even more convinced that it'd be a great choice for the backend UI. Think of each backend section as a micro application that utilized the system api to handle a specific task, and angular would just fit in perfectly. Since it's based on modules, extension developers would be able to use it's api to hook in their own applications.
It also would decrease development time.