It's nice to see the language being cleaned up a bit.
PHP was the first language I learned, but the more I used and read code written in other language, the more PHP seemed like a mess, and it got worse the more features are being bolted on.
I don't really like PHP, but it pays my bills. There are some big improvements in this release. Named arguments and actual attributes (instead of special tags in comments) are really nice.
If there was a language/framework with the simple PHP workflow of dropping files into a directory, but with a good syntax, we would probably be colonizing other galaxies at this point.
I get paid for writing PHP code, and the quality of the official PHP documentation worries me. I've searched for several of the changes introduced by the 8.0 version, and I could not find them. For instance, the page titled "Function arguments" does not mention the existence of named arguments.
The last time I wanted to submit a ticket about a documentation bug, I saw that the ticket was already created months ago. I'm surprised the PHP process can introduces changes without the related documentation update.
The PHP project is severely underresourced. One or 2 core devs are sponsored by their employer to work on the project; everyone else is volunteering, and the pool of people isn't as large as it once was.
And that's for developing PHP itself. Documentation needs people too (there are many arguments for and against adding features without documentation) and the team would welcome new members.
Join the php.internals mailing list. The join feature is _really_ unreliable, so that's hurdle number 1.
Put up with the rudeness and insults on the list. This has got better in the (checks diary) last _7 months_. It's a bit more constructive than it was.
Follow the discussions, join the documentation team, make contributions. They won't let you vote until you've done enough to be allowed voting rights. But contributing to the discussions makes a difference.
If you write C or C++ there is so much you can do. There's the barrier of learning the PHP macro language (where I got stuck) but once you get past that you're one of a very select band who can contribute to PHP's source.
PHP was the first language I learned, but the more I used and read code written in other language, the more PHP seemed like a mess, and it got worse the more features are being bolted on.