HHVM & PHP 7: The Next Generation PHP Engines

Presentation given at International PHP Conference 2014 in Munich, Germany.

1. HHVM & PHP 7 The Next-Generation PHP Engines
2. David Zuelke
4. dz@heroku.com
5. @dzuelke
6. PHP 1 - 5
7. http://xkcd.com/208/
8. PERSONAL HOME PAGE TOOLS PHP 1
9. PHP/FI PHP 2
10. PHP 3 Zend gets involved
11. PHP 4 Zend Engine 1
12. PHP 5 Zend Engine 2
13. <?php
 echo  $a  +  $b; T_OPEN_TAG   T_WHITESPACE("\n")   T_ECHO   T_WHITESPACE("  ")   T_VARIABLE("$a")   T_WHITESPACE("  ")   '+'   T_WHITESPACE("  ")   T_VARIABLE("$b")   ';'
14. decent OO PHP has started to stop sucking
15. PHP 6
16. ~2005: Unicode!
17. UTF-16 is hard
18. PHP 5.3 & 5.4
19. ~2008: PHP 6 is taking forever
21. GC! FPM! Namespaces! Lambdas! LSB!
22. suddenly: PSR-0, sharing components, Composer
23. no PHP 5.4 until three years later!
24. (fixes: RFCs and a release process)
25. PHP 6 dies, PHP 5.4 gets the remaining goodies
26. Traits, removal of lots of deprecated old junk
27. PHP has almost become pleasant
28. HIPHOP
29. ~2010
30. Facebook's faster PHP, much lower RAM/CPU usage
31. transpile PHP to C++, let g++ handle the rest
32. hard
33. compile times, no eval support, ...
34. HHVM & HACK
35. HHVM
36. ~2013
37. JIT: source to bytecode to ("just in time") native x86 code
38. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast
39. and a complete nightmare to build (at least right now)
40. lots of work ahead (extensions, Mac/Windows, ...)
41. Version name Intended release date LTS? End of support 3.3 11 Sep 2014 yes 13 Aug 2015 3.4* 6 Nov 2014 no 3.5* 1 Jan 2015 no 3.6* 26 Feb 2015 yes 28 Jan 2016 3.7* 23 Apr 2015 no 3.8* 18 Jun 2015 no 3.9* 13 Aug 2015 yes 14 Jul 2016 3.10* 8 Oct 2015 no 3.11* 3 Dec 2015 no 3.12* 28 Jan 2016 yes 29 Dec 2016 3.13* 24 Mar 2016 no 3.14* 19 May 2016 no 3.15* 14 Jul 2016 yes 15 Jun 2017
42. HACK
43. class  MyClass  {
        const  int  MyConst  =  0;
        private  string  $x  =  '';
        public  function  increment(int  $x):  int  {
            $y  =  $x  +  1;
            return  $y;
    }
 }
44. class  Mailbox<T>  {
        private  ?T  $data;
 
        public  function  __construct()  {
                $this-­‐>data  =  null;
        }
 
        public  function  put(T  $mail):  void  {
                $this-­‐>data  =  $mail;
        }
 
        public  function  check():  ?T  {
                if  ($this-­‐>data  !==  null)  {
                        return  $this-­‐>data;
                }
                return  null;
        }
 }
45. $z  =  11;
 $foo  =  $x  ==>  $y  ==>  $x  *  $z  +  $y;
 $bar  =  $foo(5);
 var_dump($bar(4));  //  outputs  59
46. PHP 7
47. a new engine!
49. bench.php and Wordpress: ~twice as fast
50. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/abstract_syntax_tree !
51. echo  "Does  1+2  equal  3?";
 if  ((1+2)  ==  3)  {
    echo  "Yes  it  does!";
 }  else  {
    echo  "No  it  doesn't...";
 } EchoStatement      ConstantExpression("Does  1+2  equal  3?")   IfBranchStatement      BinaryOpExpression(EQUAL)          BinaryOpExpression(ADD)              ConstantExpression(1)              ConstantExpression(2)          ConstantExpression(3)      EchoStatement          ConstantExpression("Yes  it  does!")      EchoStatement          ConstantExpression("No  it  doesn't...")
52. (this is where HHVM optimizes, too)
53. EchoStatement      ConstantExpression("Does  1+2  equal  3?")   IfBranchStatement      BinaryOpExpression(EQUAL)          ConstantExpression(3)          ConstantExpression(3)      EchoStatement          ConstantExpression("Yes  it  does!")      EchoStatement          ConstantExpression("No  it  doesn't...") EchoStatement      ConstantExpression("Does  1+2  equal  3?")   IfBranchStatement      ConstantExpression(true)      EchoStatement          ConstantExpression("Yes  it  does!")      EchoStatement          ConstantExpression("No  it  doesn't...") EchoStatement      ConstantExpression("Does  1+2  equal  3?")   EchoStatement      ConstantExpression("Yes  it  does!")
54. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/uniform_variable_syntax !
55. $$foo['bar']  ==  ${$foo['bar']};   $$foo-­‐>bar  ==  ${$foo}-­‐>bar;   $$foo::$bar  ==  ${$foo}::$bar;   global  $$foo-­‐>bar  ==  global  ${$foo-­‐>bar};
56. that needs fixing!
57. $foo()['bar']();
 [$obj1,  $obj2][0]-­‐>prop;
 getStr(){0};
 $foo['bar']::$baz;
 $foo::$bar::$baz;
 $foo-­‐>bar()::baz();
  
 foo()();
 $foo-­‐>bar()();
 Foo::bar()();
 $foo()();
  
 (function()  {  ...  })();
 ($obj-­‐>closure)();
  
 [$obj,  'method']();
58.                                              //  old  meaning                      //  new  meaning
 $$foo['bar']['baz'];      ${$foo['bar']['baz']};      ($$foo)['bar']['baz'];
 $foo-­‐>$bar['baz'];          $foo-­‐>{$bar['baz']};          ($foo-­‐>$bar)['baz'];
 $foo-­‐>$bar['baz']();      $foo-­‐>{$bar['baz']}();      ($foo-­‐>$bar)['baz']();
 Foo::$bar['baz']();        Foo::{$bar['baz']}();        (Foo::$bar)['baz']();
59. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/isset_ternary !
60. //  old:
 $user  =  isset($_GET['user'])  ?  $_GET['user']  :  'nobody';
 //  new:
 $user  =  $_GET['user']  ??  'nobody';
61. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/engine_exceptions_for_php7 ?
62. function  call_method($obj)  {
        $obj-­‐>method();
 }
 
 try  {
        call_method(null);
 }  catch  (EngineException  $e)  {
        echo  "Oops,  that  almost  was  a  fatal:  {$e-­‐>getMessage()}\n";
 }
63. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/bigint ?
64. tentative timeline: first RC in June GA in October (yes, 2015)
65. THE FUTURE'S SO BRIGHT I have to wear shades
66. competition is good
67. fragmentation would only hurt everyone involved
68. https://github.com/php/php-langspec
69. The End
70. HHVM & PHP 7 Thanks for listening! Contact: @dzuelke & dz@heroku.com. rate my talk on joind.in!