Good day everyone.
Today I’d like to present an updated RFC related to True Async.
This RFC proposes changes only to PHP core and does not affect any
user-facing features.
The main goal of the RFC is to introduce a backend for asynchronous
functionality in PHP.
This approach allows gradually bring async capabilities into the
language and gives space to better design the main userland API in a
separate RFC later.
If this RFC is accepted for PHP 8.5, there is a good chance to prepare
userland async in PHP 9.
For now, all userland API, such as coroutine functions (spawn), await,
and will be available in a separate extension:
GitHub - true-async/php-async: PHP Async extension.
But just to be clear, this extension is not part of the current RFC.
Best regards.
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Thank you for your efforts, but it feels like we’re being dragged down again.
Why is it so difficult to introduce asynchronous or coroutine features in PHP?
Has PHP been taken over by certain organizations or authoritarian individuals?
《As a user I rather like not having to deal with async in PHP. While I can
and do work with it in JavaScript it is by far the part of the language I
dislike the most. If I’ve got to deal with concurrency and thread issues
I’m writing the project in Golang or some other compiled language - not PHP》
If asynchronous features are already being used in Go or JavaScript, is there still a need to use PHP?
So why are they blocking the introduction of asynchronous and coroutine features in PHP, preventing it from progressing? Given the current state of technology, how much longer can PHP compete with other languages?
Please pause the patchwork fixes,
and seriously consider what features PHP developers truly need?
Please don’t let PHP stagnate any longer.
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On 1 August 2025 03:20:58 BST, happyaa <happyaa@qq.com> wrote:
Why is it so difficult to introduce asynchronous or coroutine features in PHP?
Because it's a complex feature, with a lot of scope to get something wrong and be stuck with an unfortunate design for years to come.
Has PHP been taken over by certain organizations or authoritarian individuals?
I refer you to Edmond's earlier update; far from being blocked, there has been positive collaboration and forward planning <PHP True Async RFC Stage 3 - Externals;
Please remember that PHP is written and maintained almost entirely by volunteers. There is no team of highly paid engineers waiting to be told what project to work on, nor is there any central planning committee dictating what anyone should work on.
There are a handful of people paid by the non-profit PHP Foundation so that they can spend more time on the project. If you really want to encourage more work on complex features, a good way would be to donate, and persuade businesses to donate, to that Foundation.
Or, of course, to volunteer your own time to tackle the challenges, even if that's just hanging around here and giving *specific* feedback in design discussions, rather than vague assertions that we're spending time on the "wrong" features.
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]
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