PHP 8.5 gets released today, here's what's new
17 comments
·November 20, 2025f311a
mhd
A lot of C# and Java code is oriented towards web backends, too. Which are quite big and complex. So it seems natural that languages in the same design space (trad OO) converge on similar features. I think the only exception these days is Go.
I think these days you could change "You can write Fortran in any language" to "You can structure your code like Spring in any language"…
Xenoamorphous
The web is not getting any simpler.
dotancohen
I downvoted you before reading the fine article. I'm back to correct that.
The new array_first() and array_last() functions are nice, everything else is either reimplantation of existing features or "features"which will make maintainability more difficult. The pipe operator is one such example. I don't need it - these nested methods are not really an issue in any codebase I've seen. The new syntax only works for unary functions, so higher arity functions must be wrapped in an arrow function. It's a mess and more bug prone than just nesting the functions.
calpaterson
A lot of people are too proud to be associated with PHP. I am ready to admit that know nothing about the language except that a lot of people make cool things with it.
My favourite PHP product at the moment is BookStack (https://www.bookstackapp.com/), a really good wiki. I run an instance for my family and it's great.
But there are loads of things. And I notice that many of the sites I like using...are built on well maintained PHP stacks.
nusl
PHP is a very pleasant and straight-forward language to work with. I enjoyed my time working with it, though I did also see quite a lot of very poor code.
I think the danger with PHP is more its ability to easily cause *very bad things*.
This would partially be poor training (my University literally taught PHP with SQL-injectable examples), and I think the language itself making it very easy, such that less-experienced developers using it - most of them, early on - don't realise what's wrong until it's gone wrong.
With PHP being such an early tool online, and the above properties existing, it earned a reputation for being insecure and bad.
ale42
> I think the danger with PHP is more its ability to easily cause very bad things.
Is there any language where you can't?
homebrewer
It's like walking on minefields with very different "mine densities"; when using something stricter, you would have one mine per acre, with PHP you would have ten.
For the longest time the language had been developed with this mentality that it's okay to continue running if something broke, that it's better to print out something than to do nothing and bail out.
Which means that for things to run reliably, you have to write very defensive code that checks everything you can think of. Which is probably a good idea with any language, but I find that old PHP requires much more of this.
Thankfully, they've been changing that over the past decade while still maintaining decent compatibility with old code. I just recently finished porting a pretty large project (~2 mil SLoC) from the ten year old 5.6 to the currently latest 8.4, and it's been pretty painless. The only things that broke were those that were never actually properly implemented and worked by pure chance.
jojobas
Probably not, but not most languages are not inviting to do them.
nake89
> A lot of people are too proud to be associated with PHP.
How so?
dalemhurley
The most exciting thing about the PHP8.5 announcement is the stability and maturity of PHP
boxedemp
PHP has really come a long way since I used it in the 90s on my first little website.
nick-sta
Looking forward for true async to land - nothing here gets me too excited.
tguvot
still remember been on #php with count down to php3 announcement
dotancohen
I remember the discussions at the time about which filename extension to use - and I can not believe that .php3 won. I think that I was the first to bring up the subject for PHP 4, to use .php again and not include the version number.
gregoriol
tl;dr: nothing interesting, just stability and maturity
PHP becomes a complex language with each update. For what reason? Its application is still limited to the web, mostly.