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Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2019 08:00:34 -0700
Message-ID: <CAJHtznzFkBaTYPx2XXLpvpHxExRarqmi9_i4NxBCK4UeugqUyw@mail.gmail.com>
To: "G. P. B." <george.banyard@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000012eda2058dcda406"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: hebrevc() and other 'contentious' 7.4 proposed deprecations
From: zeev@php.net (Zeev Suraski)

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On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 7:34 AM G. P. B. <george.banyard@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 16:18, Zeev Suraski <zeev@php.net> wrote:
>
Secondly the word you are looking for here is "unanimity"/"unanimous" as
> per the Cambridge dictionary [1]:
>
>> *If a group of people are unanimous, they all agree about one particular
>> matter or vote the same way, and if a decision or judgment is unanimous,=
 it
>> is formed or supported by everyone in a group*
>
>
> As consensus means, also from the Cambridge dictionary [2]:
>
>> *a generally accepted opinion or decision among a group of people*
>>
>
> Now unanimity implies consensus however not having a unanimous vote does
> not mean there is no consensus.
> Moreover, even though "consensus" does come from the Latin *c=C5=8Dns=C4=
=93nsus* (=E2=80=9Cagreement,
> accordance, unanimity=E2=80=9D) [3] it does not require unanimity IMHO.
>

While there are different definitions for consensus - as you point out
yourself, one of the definitions is certainly a synonym for uninamity - and
that's how I personally found it commonly used throughout my life.
Regardless, it certainly implies no strong disagreement from those in the
minority - which is not the case here.


> The RFC process establishes a consensus when 2/3 of the voters agree,
> which is currently the case.
>

As the author of that RFC, I can tell you with complete confidence that
deprecations were not in the intended scope of that process.  It's quite
evident from the language of the Voting RFC itself:

"Given that changes to languages (as opposed to changes to apps or even
frameworks) are for the most part irreversible - the purpose of the vote is
to ensure that there's strong support for the proposed feature."

If the bar to remove a feature is identical to introducing it - it's hardly
irreversible.  The current behavior was never ever intended.  It wasn't
even supposed to be used for deprecations - but for new features.

An argument could be made that this isn't a large enough consensus -
> something I don't agree with - however, at the time of writing this, all
> the deprecations even pass a 3/4 consensus [4].
>

I think there are at least two issues that in a healthy environment would
be needed:

- A clear, tangible benefit to the deprecation.  Having another way of
doing something certainly does not constitute a clear, tangible benefit to
removing a feature.  This should be a pre-requisite for a deprecation.  In
the past it was an obvious, implicit requirement - but that's from the days
where we weren't as 'litigative', so it may make sense to explicitly point
it out for the future.
- A much stronger consensus, that prevents the tyranny of the majority in
such cases.  Whether it should be 100% or 95% - but it certainly shouldn't
be 2/3 or even 3/4 - and should put into affect the notion that 'changes to
the language are for the most part irreversible' - which was a fundamental
tenet of the Voting RFC.

 Zeev

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