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Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 18:46:54 -0500
To: "php internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:_[PHP-DEV]_[CONCEPT][DISCUSSION]_Allow_objects_to_declare_e?=
 =?UTF-8?Q?mptiness_and_by_extension_truthiness?=
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Sun, Jul 12, 2020, at 12:48 PM, Josh Bruce wrote:
> Latest version as we zero in on what this is really about: 
> https://bit.ly/php-0002 <https://bit.ly/php-0002>
> 
> Other threads:
> 
> 1. https://externals.io/message/110879 <https://externals.io/message/110879>
> 2. https://externals.io/message/110881 <https://externals.io/message/110881>
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback so far! Definitely feels like progress.
> 
> Cheers,
> Josh

Hi Josh.  This is a big improvement, and I think focuses on the useful value-add a lot better.  Basing it off of Countable rather than Stringable is, I think, a safer overall approach, especially as it then gets us toBool as effectively a side-effect.

There's 2 additional improvements I'd suggest:

1) The 2 places that you have lists of "this thing produces true/false" could likely stand to be turned into tables to make it clearer, especially when demonstrating that isEmpty() and __toBool() are effectively opposites of each other so we get a 2-for-1 deal.

2) Include some less-random examples of real "empty" objects.

Also, please be warned that the PHP wiki doesn't use Markdown.  It uses some wonky proprietary ancient mess instead.  Now that you have Wiki access you should probably start using the PHP Wiki instead of Github so that you don't have to convert a mess of nice formatting from Markdown to PHPWiki-down.

I like this idea and wish I had the skillz to help implement it. :-)

--Larry Garfield