[BlueOnyx:25601] Re: Blueonyx 5211R development (cnt)

[Michael Stauber]

Hi George,

> Perhaps just updating to php 7.4 for now and maybe a gradual update.

I was thinking about it, but it would hurt us in the long run. The 
difference between the CodeIgniter 3 and CodeIgniter 4 frameworks is so 
big that the GUI for 5211R will be (in many parts) a start on a clean 
slate.

Sure, there are plenty of code snippets from the 5210R GUI that I can 
(after some modifications to make them work with PHP-8.1) re-use here 
and there. But even the paths where the Framework and the GUI are 
installed are now somewhat different.

Recall when everyone was on 5108R (the old framed GUI) and we offered 
the big "yum update" to transform these into 5208R's with the new GUI?

That did lead to tons of problems. It worked for some. Others had PKGs 
out of subscription and lost the GUI for the Shop packages until they 
had a chance to get the latest versions for these as well. Or RPM 
database corruptions or the odd RPM someone installed from third party 
repos threw an unexpected wrench into it.

At least on the Shop package front we would have double the work (create 
PKGs for the "old" GUI now and later on re-create these PKGs with the 
pages for the "new" GUI). And the end users have the issue that after a 
massive YUM update they still have to update the Shop installed PKGs one 
by one to regain functionality they already have before the update.

Due to the newness of the platform the "old" GUI on 5211R would start 
with some issues and glitches that I had overlooked. And once the update 
to the "new" 5211R GUI is there? It'll sure come with the odd bugs and 
glitches as well.

I'd rather rock the boat only once during the initial release.

Like I had said on prior occasions: As is EL9 doesn't offer us any 
killer feature or "must haves" as far as typical BlueOnyx usage is 
concerned and EL8 still has years and years of life in it.

So there is no need to rush BlueOnyx 5211R out of the door in a hob-nob 
fashion. Let's do it right. Which means it'll have the latest 
CodeIgniter 4 framework and will run on PHP-8.1

> I need to make so many changes to my websites for php 8.1 so I feel it 
> will be sometime before I use it myself

Yeah, it sure is different. There are plenty of odd deprecations and 
method changes in PHP-8.1, which I am not entirely comfortable with or 
where I can't follow the reasoning that was given for the changes. But 
it is what it is. /shrug

So ... clean slate it is and I'm now juggling code-pieces from the 5210R 
GUI into the new CodeIgniter (again).

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber