PHP 8.0 Beta Released, Now Under Feature Freeze

The release of PHP 8.0 is now one step closer to reality with the first beta being issued today and this also marking the feature freeze for this version due out later in the year.

PHP 8.0 is a big step forward for this widely used programming language with PHP JIT and other performance optimizations, JSON at long last brought into PHP core, improvements to the PHP GD imaging library, cryptographic message syntax support within PHP OpenSSL, PHP Zip improvements, and a variety of other enhancements. PHP JIT and the never-ending speed optimizations are what I am most excited about with PHP 8.0 and the performance has indeed been great in my testing and I'll have some results of PHP 8.0 Beta 1 out soon.

Compared to the prior alphas, PHP 8.0 Beta 1 has several core fixes and to different components a variety of fixes and memory leaks being addressed. Nothing too exciting though given the late stage and now crossing into the feature freeze.

At least two more betas are expected over the next month followed by a handful of release candidates. If all goes well, PHP 8.0.0 will debut around 26 November.

More details on PHP 8.0 Beta 1 at PHP.net.