[skloubkov]

While I understand why this was done (for the sake of comparability), I feel like its better to bite a bullet and slowly phase out broken functions over several versions.

Warn initially (few versions) and then raise exception/critical errors after. If developer isn't willing to update, chances are server isnt being updated either anyways.

[damncabbage]

Well, not really. Consider the (very common) case of a PHP-based blog, forums or shop being hosted on shared hosting. The latter gets an upgrades, and the site explodes.

(I say do it anyway. It's like IE6; give it a long grace period, then tell people they need to get with the program.)

[shoyer]

Better idea: bite the bullet, drop PHP. Switch to a language that was designed. In the eyes of many of us, PHP is beyond redemption.

[skloubkov]

Difficult to get as sign-off on re-write of large systems when there technically nothing broken.

[Killswitch]

Better idea: Be a better programmer and don't blame a language because you suck.

[jtreminio]

Nothing in this discussion mentions anything broken, though.

[Yver]

Indeed, and the title is incorrect too. Function names were not renamed to end up different buckets; Their names were picked that way.

[Someone]

What about usability? "I wasn't too worried about not being able to remember the few function names." certainly indicates that usability decreased. That may have set a pattern for it getting broken, eventually.