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Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2019 08:40:45 +0300
Message-ID: <CAJHtznzx6u7h2dYtAMTtgpzGnVYgYRA0JvJ5p=4-koor-Wdnbw@mail.gmail.com>
To: Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000032bfbc05913af318"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: [RFC] Reclassifying engine warnings
From: zeev@php.net (Zeev Suraski)

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On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 10:26 PM Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 11:33 AM Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Reading this discussion has been disappointing and somewhat disillusioning.
> I can understand and appreciate the concern for legacy code. But seeing the
> use of undefined variables espoused as a legitimate programming style, that
> just makes me sad.
>

Nikita,

It's really awkward that anybody would be under the illusion that the way
the language always behaved, consistently and well-documented pretty much
from the its inception, is somehow a bug that everybody agrees on that's
just waiting for someone to come over and fix it.  Do you really think that
if there was widespread consensus that this wasn't a legitimate programming
style, we'd have to wait for 20 years for folks to propose to change/remove
it?  This isn't short tags - this is fundamental language behavior, that
indeed isn't even documented anywhere as a 'bad thing you must avoid'.
There are commonly used code templates that rely on it, and do it in a way
many would find perfectly reasonable.  Many do, and always did consider it
as a legitimate programming style.  Many others do not - which is why we
added capabilities ages ago (from the get go, for all practical purposes)
that allow users to employ a much stricter programming style by enabling
notices.  We never, ever, at any point, considered this behavior to be
'legacy'.  It's a language feature, that you can choose whether you want to
use or not (and perhaps we can get better at that).

The fact that PHP isn't supposed to be a strict language is repeatedly
confused with exclusive concern for 'legacy code' as of late.  Yes, the
complete disregard for backwards compatibility that appears to be the most
widely accepted POV on internals is disconcerting - but much more
importantly - just because one doesn't like a certain fundamental part of
the language, doesn't make the use of it 'legacy'.  If anything, it perhaps
means that said person who chose the language made the wrong choice (there
are plenty of other choices to choose from), and they're now campaigning to
change it to fit the image of what they think it *should be* that they have
in mind.

With that said - I think it does make sense to try and come up with ways to
cater to those who prefer a stricter language, and in this particular case
- something that's a bit more aggressive than notices.  But if there's
something sad about this, it's the insistence to always frame the
discussion as a zero sum game - instead of trying to find solutions that
cater to a wider audiences.  It's time to accept that the composition of
PHP users is a lot wider than what's represented on internals, and it's
certainly not everyone's opinion that the current language is in dire need
of being rescued.

PHP can be improved for those who find it lacking, without harming those
who are in fact happy with the way it currently is.  We should start
looking for such solutions, instead of each just trying to 'win for their
own camp', putting things to a vote hoping to subjugate the other.

Zeev

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