(04-20-2015, 06:47 AM)no1youknowz Wrote: Define no control. They are unable to choose another repo and install a newer version of PHP? They are unable to change hosting provider? I mean, for Centos 6, the latest PHP is available through IUS repo and many are starting to adopt 7.
It's pretty straight-forward. In many cases a client or employer defines the host and environment in which you will be developing a website. You, as the developer, can make recommendations for both, but, in the end, they will do whatever they want to do, and you just have to work with it.
Personally, if a client wants to use a host with an unsupported version of PHP for a site, I'll inform them that their host is going to limit the capabilities we can support and create a fairly minimalistic site for them, usually without using a framework. Since it's currently pretty unusual that CI would be unsupported, the only time I really do this is with very small projects.
With my normal job, I can push for whatever changes I want on our server, but it's still something I have to spend some time justifying, and I can only use a third-party repo for relatively short periods of time (this was actually one of the things I did while pushing for the server to be upgraded last year). Even this level of control, though, is something which may eventually go away in another decade or so. We have certainly been upgrading our web server OS more often than anyone else on campus, and more often than any other server OS even in our own environment.
I use Linux on my development box at work, with the same distribution and version as the server, to ensure that any code I use on my development server will absolutely work on my production server (because tests are nice, but they can only do so much). If I want to test a new version of PHP, I create a VM for testing; I certainly do not mess with my working environment. If someone reports an error in Internet Explorer, I boot up a VM with Windows installed on it and test that. I may use a GUI for the sake of simplicity in most of my day-to-day work, but the command line is part of my migration process, something I use every day.
The command line is not a scary place, especially when you only need the most basic understanding of the commands to accomplish what you are describing. Further, newer versions of PHP are certainly not scary. Most of the new features are implemented in ways that are perfectly familiar to people who have used similar features in other languages. In many ways, I think CI 4 will be easier to use for new users than CI 3, no matter which version of PHP will be the minimum supported version.
