rector

Modern PHP shops don't really do dynamic PHP anymore. Ever since it got types and runtime type validation. Refactoring is also proven to be very easy as a result, and especially with something like Rector (https://github.com/rectorphp/rector).

Once rector gets 8.4 rules out, this will be pretty awesome: https://github.com/rectorphp/rector/issues/8701 https://github.com/nikic/PHP-Parser/commit/7b0384cdbe03431c4...

Like everything... It depends. Just use rector https://github.com/rectorphp/rector

No. If we're talking about tech debt (that's not what parent was talking about by the way) then JS is a magnitude worse. Running old projects from JS ecosystem can require multiple miracles, not only code refactoring. And your example, codeigniter, is one of the worst examples in PHP. Not only it is a framework that has minor usage: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=codeigniter,larav... It is infamous for being hard to upgrade. No responsible PHP developer would start a complex project in it today. A typical PHP project in the last years use either Laravel or Symfony. Not to mention PHP has mature tooling to perform automated code upgrade between versions: https://github.com/rectorphp/rector The project I mentioned was 4 years old and so far no code change was required between PHP 7.2 and PHP 8.3. And again, my parent was clearly

As someone maintaining multiple 10+ year old PHP applications - after the migration to 7 things have been super easy/simple. Especially if you get Rector [0] involved. [0] https://github.com/rectorphp/rector

Also, see this: https://github.com/rectorphp/rector Instant Upgrades and Automated Refactoring of any PHP 5.3+ code

There is no reason to be stuck on a previous version of Laravel. With the help of rector, it should be an afternoon's work to upgrade. https://github.com/rectorphp/rector

I see many aren't familiar with https://github.com/RectorPHP/Rector . It will help you with a bunch of PHP&frameworks migration work.

PHP seems to be doing better and better with tooling since the plethora of changes got gradually added. Due to the introduction of better types support; psalm, phpstan, can statically analyze your PHP code and surface bugs that you might overlook in the past. Of course this is what static typing programmers have been preaching all along, but you don't have to go all in, some gradual typing is enough to get benefits. Ok, you don't want to use the extra type support that PHP nowadays has, you can still benefit from it. Tools like https://github.com/RectorPHP/Rector help you automate PHP code updates, and changes between framework versions. Even the linked proposal includes a script based around the recent-ish PHP built-in tokenizer (no regex shenanigans), to migrate the code for you. There's some churn, but generally deprecations are sensib

I opened a PR here: https://github.com/rectorphp/rector/pull/6101

Getting a copy of PHPStorm will make things much easier, you can run Reformat code on PHP files and you can also do mass updates from code inspections. Also worth checking out is a package called Rector (https://github.com/rectorphp/rector) which will automate a lot of this by scanning the codebase and providing diffs so you can upgrade safely.

Roughly in the order you should do it. Hopefully it's at least PHP 5.3 code: 1. Definitely get a PHP IDE: https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/ 2. Get a step debugger and hook it in: https://xdebug.org/ 3. Fix the code style: https://github.com/FriendsOfPHP/PHP-CS-Fixer 4. Run the code through some static analysis tools https://phpstan.org/ https://psalm.dev/ 5. Upgrade the code with an AST fixer (might help you update to newer PHP version): https://github.com/rectorphp/rector 6. Add tests to it: https://phpunit.de/ 7. Run mutation tests: https://infection.github.io/ The "0 budget" is rough, though.