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Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2020 15:57:38 -0500
Message-ID: <CAJmjfvX_qjLwUByeuyENjY133v-vRDHqCmfxto9evu1ktXVgaA@mail.gmail.com>
To: Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
Cc: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0000000000005717fc05a20496c2"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [DISCUSSION] Compact Object Property Assignment
From: jakob@givoni.dk (Jakob Givoni)

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Hi Rowan,

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 10:00 AM Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> myObj.with {
>      foo = 10
>      bar = foo + 20
> }
>

I really like the suggested "with" syntax, - in fact I had
contemplated something like that along the way.
The slight "problem", I think, is that, as you mention, adding a fully
fledged "with" syntax would imply that you could do a lot more than simply
assigning values to properties.
And while I agree that that would be cool, it feels like overkill for the
actual problem COPA is trying to solve.
Do you think a narrow version of "with" syntax could be incorporated into
COPA without causing frustration? Or would it be wise to give it its own
RFC?

I haven't researched if there have already been RFCs proposing something
along the lines of "with", and as such I have no idea if it has already
been discussed and found problematic.


> I'm not sure whether I like this idea or not, but I thought I'd share
> it, because I think COPA as currently proposed is too narrow a use case
> to deserve a special syntax.
>

I understand and fully agree that COPA is narrow, but I don't really
understand why that's a problem - I proposed it exactly because I felt that
its simplicity is its force.
Low hanging fruit is usually something I would encourage to go after.
I believe it's a trivial implementation that can help in uncountable
situations where you just need to assign values to a predefined data
structure in a single expression.

I'd really like to hear the arguments against such a cost-benefit
calculation.

Cheers,
Jakob

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