Steps to ensure the website is ready for a PHP upgrade

[felixarntz]

Let's collect ideas here for recommendations to give to the site owner so that they can determine whether their website is ready for a PHP upgrade to a modern version. Since we don't know about the technical / financial capabilities of the site owner, we just need to try our best to come up with universal things that decrease the chance of breakage.

These recommendations would belong into the [provide steps to prepare an update to PHP] section of https://github.com/WordPress/servehappy/issues/2#issuecomment-325455150.

[felixarntz]

Some ideas:

• "You can install the PHP Compatibility Checker plugin to check for possible issues with your plugins."
• If you have a developer who takes care of the technical bits and pieces of your website, please ask them to check the plugins and theme for compatibility.

[nerrad]

Test things out on a staging/development site first.

Pros:

• allows site owners to keep production site live while verifying things will work on the next php version.
• allows site owners to verify any plugin/theme/custom-code updates needed for php compatibility work as expected.

Cons:

• Not easy technically to setup a staging site separately from production (while authentically mimicking production).

Other:

• This suggestion would be something that could be linked to some list of hosts that support staging sites (which could make it easier for folks). However, its possible not every host offering staging for sites supports staging on different PHP versions.

[felixarntz]

As discussed in today's meeting, let's work on these steps through individual issues: https://github.com/WordPress/servehappy/labels/before%20upgrade