Php-rdkafka: Dropping PHP EOL versions with next major, prepare for PHP8

[nick-zh]

With php:8.0 approaching next year, i think it would make sense to deprecate all
php versions that have reached EOL.
The versions that are or will be EOL when 8.0 comes out are:

• php:5.6 (EOL since 12/2018)
• php:7.0 (EOL since 12/2018)
• php:7.1 (EOL since 12/2019)
• php:7.2 (EOL with php:8.0)

I think this would help clean the code up and also reduce CI time.
It would probably make sense, to start a branch for this later next year,
to clean stuff up and make it php:8.0 compatible.
We probably should also drop support for anything before librdkafka:1.2.0 by then.
What are your thoughts @arnaud-lb ?

[nick-zh]

PHP8.0 is planned for December this year.

So my suggestion for php-rdkafka:5.0, which will support it, is:

• support only php:7.3 or greater
• support only librdkafka:1.4 or greater

I am open to support librdkafka:1.3.x but in December it will be already one year old and librdkafka is evolving quickly.
Please everybody, share your thoughts on this.

[nick-zh]

With the last feature (producer transactions) being ready, i will move forward with working on this in the coming days and weeks.
@arnaud-lb please let me know if you have any additional input to my above comment :v:

[nick-zh]

Just wanted to drop a short update, the current open PR should work fine with the current PHP8 beta. Release of this will take some time though, since i want to get some other things into the next major as well :v: and we also need to release php-rdkafka:4.1 first

[nick-zh]

The open PR should be working fine with the current PHP8rc. I will do some heavy testing on the weekend

[Jeroeny]

What's the current status of the PR?

[nick-zh]

Ready for review :smile:

[nick-zh]

My PR was split into smaller PRs: #401, #403, #405, and #406 and merged

[andypost]

Are you going to create 5.1 branch?

[nick-zh]

@arnaud-lb has yet to release php-rdkafka:5.0, normally we kept the latest major on master until now.

[nick-zh]

The release is finally here, enjoy :tada: