Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:106985
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <076701d56978$86020910$92061b30$@php.net> <CADyq6sK4HektgfDpCCFR3=bumyPaf9vn=-WdvaboHybBQKd53g@mail.gmail.com>
 <078e01d5697c$5512bc10$ff383430$@php.net> <CAKws9z1EBSqCFy2wD3cEV49KDSJOd6tT04PrCkxG8+3Hb6WpTA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPKYkKw1EU3Qp6W7b19r4kMKPD1HntH+7NQSxSiDNcLXqPERMA@mail.gmail.com> <CAKuGYLRWF9jnS-Zs+uRFNN1pgRSvHFpW-FChgNq9Rk282AFFGA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAKuGYLRWF9jnS-Zs+uRFNN1pgRSvHFpW-FChgNq9Rk282AFFGA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2019 13:22:19 -0400
Message-ID: <CAPKYkKxUyeWWZY5OyDLtAYiDUYLkwyMjuc_Wq2Y++3C9CP6G1w@mail.gmail.com>
To: Matthew Brown <matthewmatthew@gmail.com>
Cc: Scott Arciszewski <scott@paragonie.com>, Zeev Suraski <zeev@php.net>, 
	Marco Pivetta <ocramius@gmail.com>, PHP Internals List <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000e5d73505925e61c8"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Changing fundamental language behaviors
From: chasepeeler@gmail.com (Chase Peeler)

--000000000000e5d73505925e61c8
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 1:05 PM Matthew Brown <matthewmatthew@gmail.com>
wrote:

> that don't fundamentally change the language
>
>
> There's clearly a big disagreement about whether this is a fundamental
> change or not.
>
> Preventing something that the entire field of software engineering frowns
> upon (and that most PHP developers avoid like the plague) doesn't seem like
> a *fundamental* change.
>
>
I would argue that this is exactly such a change. The flexibility of PHP
has often been touted as a feature and something that sets it apart.
Whether that's good or bad is, frankly, irrelevant. There are valid reasons
for not always initializing variables or array keys. It might be a bad
reason in your opinion, but others view it as perfectly acceptable. For 20
years people have developed code based on that feature. It was never
considered an error, and often not even considered bad practice. To
suddenly define it as such is the exact definition of a fundamental change
to the language itself.

What if Java suddenly said that all properties are suddenly private, and
can only be accessed through getter/setter methods? The fact that you
should make properties private and use such methods is a practice that was
drilled into me from day one. Would that justify making such a change,
though?

-- 
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com

--000000000000e5d73505925e61c8--