How long do you think the Classic WordPress MySQL/PHP system will be around?

  • How long do you think the Classic WordPress MySQL/PHP system will be around?

    I have learned WordPress CRUD functions decently and have been prepping to make my own online app with the functions and the security provided under $wpdb.

    Now, I know WP is moving towards Rest API with JSON instead of MySQL. I am at a point where I can’t afford to bring on a developer yet who knows JS and JSON, and Rest API standards and I can’t afford to spend the time to relearn everything I learned within the WP ecosystem.

    I know this is not the most efficient way to do it, but I know it will work and as a business owner, my role has to stay in the highest and best use of my time.

    Does anyone have a definitive-ish answer on how long MySQL, PHP and the classic WP framework/functions will be around? It is a bit crazy b/c if about 25% of the internet are on the old platform it seems like migration from the old system (MySQL) to (JSON) based data will be a massive undertaking.

    My plan would be to hire a JS developer one day to convert the MySQL data over to JSON, but I just want to hear it from someone involved in the WP community, what they think their realistic opinion is, perhaps only for my own sanity! ??

    Thanks,
    Tim

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • There’s a misconception here that needs to be corrected:

    I know WP is moving towards Rest API with JSON instead of MySQL

    The REST API and JSON are not ‘instead’ of MySQL. All of WordPress’ data is still MySQL, and there a no plans for it to be anything else. Nothing needs to be converted. They’re not instead of PHP either. What do you think powers the REST API? PHP and MySQL. The REST API just allows developers to interact with that data and the PHP back-end remotely by sending and receiving JSON.

    While more and more of the front-end side of the admin is being built in JavaScript, the back-end is all still PHP, and there are no plans to change that. For the foreseeable future the vast majority of what you know will continue to be relevant.

    That being said, there is new stuff being introduced into WordPress all the time, and the front-end side of that is going to involve a lot of JavaScript. So if you want to integrate and extend these new features (such as the upcoming new editor) you will probably need to learn JavaScript. This is why Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, publicly told developers in 2015, “Learn JavaScript, deeply”.

    Learning WordPress (or any platform) isn’t something you finish and then you’re done. It’s a constant process as WordPress evolves. That’s always been true regardless of the database or programming language. Part of that process is now becoming more comfortable with JavaScript, but even if it wasn’t JavaScript there’d still be stuff you’d need to invest time in learning.

    So rather than thinking about hiring a developer for a sudden changeover where everything will be converted to something new, you should thinking about having yourself or your employees start taking JavaScript seriously as a core part of WordPress and learn the skills necessary to work with it.

    Thread Starter timmorrisdesign

    (@timmorrisdesign)

    Thanks for your response, Jacob! Sorry, I misspoke there, I didn’t mean to imply that PHP would be going away, but that the combination of PHP with MySQL would be going away. I had thought that all of the data would be stored in JSON eventually instead of a MySQL database. So you are saying that the regular CRUD functions will continue to work for the foreseeable future with MySQL, but that there will also be WordPress data stored as JSON data as well?

    Nothing’s stored in JSON, not sure where you’re getting that idea from.

    Thread Starter timmorrisdesign

    (@timmorrisdesign)

    Thanks, I clearly have some learning to do. Either way, I appreciate the clarity you have given me.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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