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Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2020 13:37:39 -0500
To: "php internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Attribute Amendments
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")


On Mon, Jun 8, 2020, at 11:47 AM, Lester Caine wrote:
> On 08/06/2020 16:30, Benjamin Eberlei wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 11:11 AM Lester Caine <lester@lsces.uk 
> > <mailto:lester@lsces.uk>> wrote:
> > 
> >     On 08/06/2020 09:44, Marco Pivetta wrote:
> >      > I was mostly conflicted around the "allow grouped attributes"
> >     bit, but
> >      > James Titcumb (who currently cannot write to this list due to bounced
> >      > emails) convinced me that it is a good replacement for `/**` and
> >     `*/`:
> > 
> >     If twenty years of documentation provided by docblocks is to be
> >     replaced
> >     there has to be a compelling reason to do so and while this latest
> >     drive
> >     for yet another documentation method seems to be now a fate acompli
> >     there WAS no reason to replace that perfectly acceptable documentation!
> > 
> > 
> > Attributes are not documentation (they could theoretically be used for 
> > it, but its not the intented use-case).
> > 
> > Attributes are supposed to be used with Runtime Reflection to have an 
> > effect on the program.
> > 
> > Their existence does not supersede docblocks, only the use of docblocks 
> > for meta-programming (essentially doing what Attributes allows with 
> > docblocks).
> 
> So the statement that "it is a good replacement for `/**` and `*/`" is 
> not correct ... it may be that others do not understand the difference? 
> Personally none of this is addressing the fundamental problem of 
> providing a generic variable system that can manage range as well as 
> 'type' ... something the docblock have been providing for a long time 
> and moving part of that to some new element is only making things worse :(

That... is not related?  This is *not* a documentation tool.  At all.  It's more akin to moving Doctrine Annotations into core (junior version thereof).  It doesn't render docblocks redundant, it renders "using docblocks for custom metaprogramming" redundant, which was always a fugly hack to begin with.

A type system improvement for "this parameter must be a positive integer less than 50" would be super nice, I agree, but is in no way related to the topic at hand at all.

--Larry Garfield