Should Drupal move to PHP 5?

In one word: absolutely.

In one sentence: if we don't, the drupal project will die along with PHP.

My friends, PHP is dying. Every day, the best programmers are moving to, faster, better constructed, more powerful languages such as python and ruby. The developers of PHP have been aware of this for some time. That's why they released PHP 5*. 

PHP 5 was a significant counter attack on PHP's biggest weaknesses.  Among other things, it allows PHP to be a true object oriented langauge. However, the real meat of PHP5 isn't the flung OOP buzzword, but the fine details. For example, being able to pass a variable by reference in a foreach loop... however, this post isn't about PHP 5.

So if the PHP developers aren't to blame for PHP's impending death, who is? Well, that would be us. Or more specifically, those who champion sticking with PHP 4 on "practical" grounds. If you ask me, I see nothing practical about  making our technology obsolete on the grounds of "playing it safe" .

The entire situation with php 4 vs 5 is much as George Orwell described the decay of the English lanuage:

But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.

If I may be so bold, its the proponents of PHP 4 support who are keeping this cycle from being broken. All it takes is for someone, somewhere, to stop drinking the php4 support koolaid. I, along with many others, would be proud if it were the drupal community that draws the line, and stops drinking the koolaid of our demise. It would be a real chance for us to show leadership to the open source community. My guess is that others will follow our lead, which will result in hosting companies finally getting off their lazy, fat, grotesquely slothful asses and upgrading their freaking PHP version (its not that hard! for gods sake!).