PHP's dynamic server-side scripting language

Developers develop applications, programs, and websites using PHP's dynamic server-side scripting language (Hypertext Pre-processor). The language is an open-source general-purpose scripting language suitable for web development and can be used along with HTML.

It is feature rich and offers many advanced features for a professional software programmer. Custom functions, use of data types, constructs, control structures, structuring of code with the help of object-oriented programming, use of reusable code, and more maintainable code with the help of programming standards make PHP7 an easy-to-understand and versatile language.

With these advantages in PHP7 and other advanced versions, the use of PHP5 was stagnating and gradually it was phased out from the market.

Way back in the year 2019, if as a developer you have used PHP 5 then you have hit a roadblock. Though PHP5 was used ubiquitously, it had its pitfalls.

Developers hated PHP5 due to these 5 reasons:

• Technically Inconsistent and with a bad design

  PHP5 was unpredictable and suffered from unstable code. The design was not careful enough to arrest the user’s attention. Bad syntax design choices, poorly organized and poorly structured code, non-readable code, and code with architectural and design issues suffering from too many intricated dependencies were some of the flaws found in the PHP5 language.

  Also, a newer version of PHP applications was dropping its support for PHP 5.6 which means you may not be able to upgrade your PHP 5.6 application to the latest version until you make a switch to PHP 7.2.

  PHP5 was error-prone on account of offering too much flexibility and freedom to its developers. Because of bad design and outdated programming structure, PHP5 was also not readily testable. All these reasons led developers to stop using PHP5 in 2019.

• Security aspect

  PHP5 suffered from insecure coding practices. A host of security vulnerabilities had been reported in PHP5.PHP5 was considered outdated and had been stopped to use in 2019 on account of no longer receiving security patches putting web servers at risk. Security support for PHP5 had been ended and an upgraded version to PHP 7 was warranted. Many obsolete functions and libraries were used in PHP5 that posed a grave security challenge to existing code.

• Speed and Performance Issues

  Many performance-related bugs were found in PHP5 applications. Memory leaks had led eventually to application crashes. Unused memory, high memory utilization, poor-performing API calls, and slow execution of database queries were the major issues encountered with PHP5. Also, Performance in terms of speed and connectivity issues in PHP5 had put it way below PHP7. This was also considered a valid reason for developers to stop using PHP5 in 2019.

• Handling of Fatal errors

  Handling exceptions and other deadly errors were at an advanced level in PHP7 as compared to PHP5. Many exceptions were not caught in PHP5 vis a vis PHP7.

• Asynchronous Programming Support

  PHP7 offered multitasking capabilities with easy access to the database, networking, set timers, and performance of several I/O operations at the same time and with no hiccups. One could execute multiple tasks simultaneously in the case of PHP7 as compared to PHP5.

Conclusion:

Above mentioned reasons had made PHP5 less environmentally- friendly and less cost-effective putting more burden on existing servers and hence it was of less demand. Thus, these made the developer teams refrain from using PHP5.In today’s competitive market, slow connectivity with PHP5 could have posed a major blow-up. Developers are relocating their code to PHP7 due to these compatibility issues with PHP5. Above all, the stability of websites and efficient use of expensive resources were also the major touchstones to be considered while making use of PHP7.