On the php.internals mailing list Zeev Suraski, one of the developers behind the Zend Engine powering the PHP language, posted some thoughts about PHP 8, the next major jump for the language.

As I mentioned a few days ago I intended to send it slightly later - but as Nikita brought up the topic of PHP 8, this is probably as good a time as any to start the discussion.

The goal of this email isn't to discuss in detail each and every topic that's mentioned, but rather to establish whether we want to move to focus on PHP 8 as we go beyond PHP 7.3, based on some of the research projects and PoCs we've been working on.

He then lists out some of the places he thinks should be included in the next major version of PHP including:

• Just-in-time compilation
• Better support [for] long-running, async-based, microservices-focused execution model
• Preloading support.

He notes that the list he presented is by no means complete and not a decree of what should come but suggestions of where he sees the language could dramatically improve. The post has already gathered a large number of replies from people all over in the PHP community sharing their own ideas and responding to the ones Zeev presented in his original message.