Which versions of MySQL, PHP and Apache do you use?

[yoyo123]

For years I have been interested in learning linux, apache, mysql and php. I have dabbled with these on my iBook using apache 1.33, php 4, and mysql 4.

Anyway, I figured a good place to start would be my webhosting company and try to emulate their configuration so I hopped online and studied their config. They appear to be using a similiar configuration as my iBook. Yeehaw . I then decided to get a linux distribution (specifically CentOS) and installed it on my AMD Semperon (Yes I know this is a Mac forum ). Once installed, I realized CentOS installed Apache 2, MySQL 5 and PHP 5. Well, this started me thinking why shouldn't I start using these since some have been out for years (such as apache2)?

So here's, my problem. I want to learn how to use these (specifically Apache2 and PHP5), but I also want to be realistic. It appears VERY VERY few hosting company's even use apache2 and php5. Why is this? Apache 2 have been out so a VERY long time. PHP5 and MySQL5 too. Is it better to learn the older versions of these knowing what I am learning may not even function in a real world hosting configuration? What versions of these technologies do y'all use, are learning or have learned?

 

[HateEternal]

Hosting companies are pretty slow to move to newer versions of stuff. There can be a lot of compatibility issues when upgrading. I know MySQL some of they query syntax and keywords from version to version and it is always a pain to get everything converted over. As far as PHP goes usually anything written in 4 will work with 5.

You should do what you said, figure out what your host is running and emulate that setup on your development machine. I built a fairly simple webapp with MySQL and PHP a while back and I used MySQL 4.2 and PHP5 on my dev machine when my host only had like MySQL 4.1 and PHP4 (yea you wouldn't think there would be any issues between 4.1 and 4.2 but there were). I didn't use any of the PHP 5 features because I knew that I was going to be deploying it on 4, but I used features in MySQL that didn't exist in 4.1 because I really didn't think there was going to be that big of a difference. I ended up having to re-write a lot of queries.