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Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 09:49:35 +0200
Message-ID: <CAJHtznxkwPoA3y4j-p-ok+Ds4u551sidyZXxtkLigOdmEA_bkQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: Theodore Brown <theodorejb@outlook.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000827a350594616911"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Deprecate Backtick Operator (V2)
From: zeev@php.net (Zeev Suraski)

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Before replying (quickly) to this, I want to point out, again, that it=E2=
=80=99s
mind boggling we have to start discussing non-topics and spend time, energy
and mental strength on this endless stream of out-of-the-blue deprecation
proposals.

On Tue, 8 Oct 2019 at 5:32 Theodore Brown <theodorejb@outlook.com> wrote:

>
> I did some further analysis on the output of Nikita's script.
> Ignoring the duplicate WordPress package, all the occurrences
> are in just 21 unique projects.


So in the non-representative sample of the PHP codebase at large, we have
it used in roughly 1% of the packages.  That=E2=80=99s not =E2=80=9Cjust=E2=
=80=9D - that=E2=80=99s a lot
for a language as ridiculously popular as PHP is.

In 8 of these, the backtick uses are exclusively in test files or other
> scripts not part of the library source code. Then there are 11 packages
> with one or two uses each, and only 2 packages with more than two
> occurrences.
>

That=E2=80=99s another clue right there - of course it=E2=80=99s less likel=
y to be found in
library code, and more likely to be found in admin scripts - which are in
turn less likely to be in packagist or otherwise public.

That said, the key point here has nothing to do with the popularity.  It
has to do with the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing happened since
this feature was introduced to make us even consider removing it.  Each and
every one of the supplied motivations for supposedly removing it existed in
exactly the same way when it was introduced.

Current internals@ folks having a different opinion over the exact same
facts is NOT sufficient grounds for removing it or even starting a
discussion about it.  Something new and very substantial has to happen for
us to even start having this conversation.  That=E2=80=99s how it=E2=80=99s=
 always been and
that=E2=80=99s how it should stay.

Zeev

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