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In-Reply-To: <76EBF900-3BE8-4B60-9422-880A9754FCC4@lvht.net>
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2018 22:18:20 -0600
Cc: PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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References: <76EBF900-3BE8-4B60-9422-880A9754FCC4@lvht.net>
To: Haitao Lv <i@lvht.net>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Fiber support (again)
From: aaron@trowski.com (Aaron Piotrowski)


> On Feb 7, 2018, at 7:05 PM, Haitao Lv <i@lvht.net> wrote:
>=20
> Hi internals,
>=20
> I propose to introduce the Fiber feature AGAIN.
>=20
> The main purpose of the RFC is to introducing a lightweight stackful =
coroutine support for PHP and make it possible to write non-blocking =
code in the blocking style.
>=20
> In this RFC, no new keyword is needed. So it will not break the PHP =
7.3 release.
>=20
> Please see the RFC https://wiki.php.net/rfc/fiber
>=20
> Dmitry and I are working on the implementation at =
https://github.com/fiberphp/fiber-ext
> And a series of usage demo can be found at =
https://github.com/fiberphp/fiber-demo
>=20
> Please offer you comments.
>=20
> Thank you.
>=20
> ---
> Haitao Lv
>=20


Hi Haitao,

I'm very excited to see this sort of feature coming to PHP.

A couple of questions and thoughts:

- How do you determine when a fiber has returned? Looking at the source, =
it appears Fiber::status() must be used, comparing against constants. =
Separate methods similar to Generator would be better IMO. e.g.: =
Fiber::alive(), Fiber::suspended(), Fiber::running()

- What about throwing exceptions into a fiber?

- Using Fiber::resume() to initialize the fiber and resume feels =
awkward. Separate methods again would be better here, perhaps =
Fiber::init(...$args) and Fiber::resume($send).

- What happens if the sub1() function in the RFC is invoked outside of a =
fiber?

- I think a keyword here would be beneficial, even if it has a minor BC =
impact. Fibers could then be written like generators. `await` or `emit` =
as a keyword perhaps? This would be a less verbose API, feel less =
magical (a static method call that actually pauses execution feels out =
of place), and would allow Fibers to be returned from methods, named =
functions, etc with less boilerplate.

Thanks to you and Dmitry for working on this!

Aaron Piotrowski=