Getting Parse Error during installation of Drupal 8
Hopefully you're not installing Drupal 8 in the hope of using it as a stable website...it's nowhere near ready yet :)

That said, the reason you're getting the error is because the PHP const keyword has only been available for use in the global scope since PHP 5.3. Drupal 8 uses const in the global scope in a lot of places (correctly, as Drupal 8 will require at least PHP 5.3).

My guess is you have PHP 5.2 or lower installed on your server.

Some helpful links:


const docs
Drupal change record for using const instead of define()
Migrating from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x