PHP 8.4 major features and updates

PHP 8.4 introduces a range of features aimed at improving performance, code clarity, and developer efficiency. Here are the highlights:

1. Property Hooks: Inspired by languages like Kotlin and C#, property hooks enable custom behavior for getting and setting property values directly on class properties, reducing the need for explicit getter and setter methods.
2. Enhanced JIT Compiler: The Just-In-Time (JIT) engine now uses Intermediate Representation (IR), leading to better optimization, faster execution, and support for newer hardware platforms like RISC-V.
3. Simplified new Syntax: Methods, properties, and constants can now be chained directly after instantiating a class without additional parentheses, making code more concise.
4. Asymmetric Visibility: PHP now supports different visibility levels for reading and writing properties, such as allowing public reads but restricting writes to private or protected contexts.
5. New Array Functions: Functions like array_find(), array_any(), and array_all() simplify common operations on arrays, such as searching for elements or checking conditions.
6. HTML5 Support: A new \Dom\HTMLDocument class replaces \DOMDocument for better compatibility with modern HTML5 structures.
7. Exit and Die as Functions: These are now fully recognized as proper functions, making them consistent with the rest of the language.
8. Lazy Objects: Native support for lazy initialization reduces resource usage by deferring object creation until they are accessed.
9. Deprecated Implicit Nullable Types: Variables with default null values must now be explicitly marked nullable using ?, improving code clarity and preparing for stricter rules in future versions.

These changes make PHP 8.4 a powerful update, particularly for developers working on high-performance or modern web applications.