We\u2019re happy to announce that we have deployed the latest release candidate version of PHP 8 on all our servers. As always we are among the first companies to provide the new PHP on their hosting platform. PHP 8 is expected to facilitate developers to write cleaner code with better quality that gets executed faster. Since release candidates are not suitable for live sites, we invite you to try it out on a staging copy of your site or on projects that are not live yet. We\u2019ll give away awesome PHP elephants to 10 of the early adopters who share their opinion about PHP 8 with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PHP 8.4: Stay Updated!<\/strong>\u00a0\ud83d\ude80 Check out our latest blog post to explore the newest features and enhancements in PHP 8.4<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n The latest PHP version brings a lot of new things but the one we are obsessed with is JIT (just in time compiler). It is the first time that PHP version has a compiler – JIT – that caches a version of your already interpreted code and generates a machine code as an output (machine code is on with 0\u2019s and 1\u2019s only). The \u201cjust in time\u201d compiler promises speed improvements for complex tasks and algorithms and opens new opportunities for the PHP language to broaden its reach and applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of you may wonder how JIT relates to the Opcache, which brought significant performance gains to many websites? The main job of the Opcache is to cut the processes of tokenization, parsing, and compiling of Opcodes, which then get processed by the Zend engine. The role of JIT is to save on the execution of the Opcodes by the Zend engine, so it joins forces and intervenes to spare resources where the Opcache cannot help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s worth mentioning a few downsides we have noticed so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the major differences that you will notice is that many of the warnings and notices that weren\u2019t catchable are now exceptions or errors, which can be caught and logged. It is possible that due to this change, a lot of problems that remained hidden with the previous PHP versions will now surface. This is a great improvement, as it will allow developers to spot potential issues easier. However, have in mind that it may be a good idea to set display_errors=Off<\/em> if you decide to use PHP 8 on a live site to not show such errors to your site visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the new elements, such as the nullsafe operator, greatly improve the readability of the code, making it shorter and neater. Instead of nesting several \u201cif\u2019s\u201d you can use the \u201cnull\u201d operator to write all those in just 1 line of code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For several versions now, PHP has been trying to define the arguments that each method could adopt and become more of a typed language. In this latest release, there is a feature called \u201cunion types\u201d which allows you to define 2 value types for each function, which is a natural continuation of that trend. As the example below shows, the function can return an integer or a float: <\/p>\n\n\n\n public function getNumber(): int|float { The list of new features keeps going and we suggest this article as a good reference point for PHP developers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/stitcher.io\/blog\/new-in-php-8 All our clients can change the PHP version of their sites from their control panel – Site Tools > Dev section, or cPanel > PHP versions. With PHP8 still being a Release Candidate, we strongly advise that you do not enable it for your live sites, but run tests with it on our staging environment (staging is available for GrowBig, GoGeek and Cloud plans), or create copies of your sites in your accounts if you do not have the staging functionality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the moment, we have deployed PHP 8 without the following modules: mcrypt, geoip, ioncube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We tried to give you the big picture on what the new PHP8 is all about. Now we would like to hear what you actually think about it, once you get the chance to try it out. What do you like and what do you dislike? How does it work on your website? Do you see any performance improvements? We are looking to explore how our more experienced users take advantage of this early release candidate before it becomes official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>What are the PHP 8 improvements and features<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Faster code execution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Code with higher quality <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Cleaner, shorter code<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The \u201ctype\u201d trend<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
return $this->number;
}<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/stitcher.io\/blog\/php-jit
https:\/\/wiki.php.net\/rfc\/nullsafe_operator<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>How to take advantage of PHP 8 on our platform?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Tell us what you think and win a PHP elephant<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n