Tom McFarlin keeps showing up at The WordPress Helpers. Until now, everything Tom’s said that we sourced were no-question-about-it correct. Today, we’re looking at Mr. McFarlin’s article on PHP versions, a geeky WordPress element if ever there was one, and saying … go read; then you decide whether Tom McFarlin’s position on PHP versions is right, or wrong.

Some WordPress elements can be viewed so granularly, the question of what’s correct and what’s just plain wrong gets lost. WordPress database fields is one of those; as cool as the Advanced Custom Fields plug-in is, whether it’s “right” to head down the road it follows is a matter of your application, your expertise, and some other stuff that you won’t define correctly until after you use the tool.

[clickToTweet tweet=”WordPress PHP: choosing between compatibility and being up-to-date” quote=”CHOOSE: should your WordPress PHP version be compatible, or up-to-date?”]

PHP versioning is … different than that. Assuming you control the function (with shared hosting you likely do not) this WordPress elements issue comes down to a simple A/B decision point: Do you want to be as compatible as possible, or as up-to-date as you can be?

Tom comes down on the side of keeping your WordPress PHP version up-to-date. We’re not sure we agree, but … we think we do. And again, depending on your hosting you may not have a say in the matter.

Like SQL (and to a lesser extent AJAX and jQuery) PHP is one of those “WordPress Elements” you  need to pay attention to. Let Tom McFarlin guide you: