[RFC] Rewrite Checklist

[matthewtrask]

Hey yall,

As this project gets bigger (met a ton of mainline hosts for Wordpress yesterday with tons of interest), I wanted to make a check list here of things we should do/will do to bump this:

a. off jekyll and into PHP
b. write a few things that will help us automate this easier.

So the list which will be updated as we go is as follows:

• Move to PHP 7.2 (Forge/DO)
• Build base platform on Laravel (I want to use it to build it, but not rely on Laravel)
• Keep the way we add information - data.yml file (parse it by PHP/Laravel)
• REST API for Twitter bot (I want to alert hosts their PHP is out of date, and automate it)
• instructions for hosts to help us automate it i.e. they expose /version or something, and it returns a JSON/YML/whatever response of the version. More reliable.

[colinodell]

instructions for hosts to help us automate it i.e. they expose /version or something, and it returns a JSON/YML/whatever response of the version. More reliable.

Is this in regards to hosts keeping their version numbers up-to-date? If so, I'd ask you to consider keeping the ability to provide phpinfo URLs as these have a few benefits:

• It's already a "standard format" that any host can easily provide (maybe not as nicely structured for computers to parse, but it is standardized and only requires dropping phpinfo() onto any prod machine - updates to prod will reflect automagically, no need to edit files)
• It's harder to "cheat": instead of editing a JSON/YML value to say you support the latest version, you actually have to perform the update, thus proving that your boxes are indeed up-to-date. (It's not 100% cheat-proof but is good enough)
• It provides other nice information as well (more-detailed build numbers; default extensions and configuration values). Perhaps the link to the phpinfo file can/should be exposed? Something to consider.

Apologies for rambling a little bit there :) Just wanted to throw my $0.02 into the mix.

[matthewtrask]

Im fine with phpinfo as well. Im just looking for more ways to automate it, make it easier for hosting providers to get us the information. As I wandering around Wordcamp, and asked how to verify their PHP versions, most didn't have a solid answer. Godaddy and Bluehost wanted to give me accounts, which I don't want. So I think a nice compromise would be an endpoint with the version. But your point about cheating is absolutely valid and crucial.