Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:111425
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <alpine.DEB.2.23.453.2008100935570.7489@singlemalt.home.derickrethans.nl>
 <CALKiJKrNxRqhLmqE0t=_qQX90Qy3+qT_FBXZQ5t_g0r2-jV2AQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAJvSBVPfd3HUy+JHLEL-Z4yC87N+ZD=qHi=CMjLC9hSErogWdg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAJvSBVPfd3HUy+JHLEL-Z4yC87N+ZD=qHi=CMjLC9hSErogWdg@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2020 15:08:26 +0200
Message-ID: <CAEPJduk9BGAcVOmJcVmCSkCs5C53A2EkTtRqtJXjZ=wtmYxHzA@mail.gmail.com>
To: Peter Bowyer <phpmailinglists@gmail.com>
Cc: Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>, 
	PHP Developers Mailing List <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000012ae7205ac85a7ab"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Shorter Attribute Syntax Change
From: kontakt@beberlei.de (Benjamin Eberlei)

--00000000000012ae7205ac85a7ab
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

On Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 11:28 AM Peter Bowyer <phpmailinglists@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, 10 Aug 2020 at 10:15, Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I am not a fan of the @@ syntax, and respect what you're trying to do
> with
> > this RFC, but am disappointed you haven't engaged with those of us who
> said
> > that the RFC needs more detail. There is simply not enough information in
> > that table to "have an objective look", and the only other text in the
> RFC
> > makes a vague assertion about the lack of ending symbol which I still
> don't
> > understand the significance of.
> >
>
> I have voted no because I asked a question about the ending delimiter and
> why () didn't count. Another person asked a similar question and neither of
> us got a reply.
>

() does not count as ending symbol, because it is not required, as such its
not an ending symbol.

The point Andreas Leathley makes in the discussion thread about new Foo not
having an end symbol demonstrates exactly the opposite point he was trying
to make, because the new statement itself has to end with a semicolon:

new Foo();
new Foo;

A statement has an ending symbol semicolon.

Yes you can argue an attribute is metadata like "public" or "static" and
they don't have start and ending symbols either. But they are also *single*
words without special chars, as such much easier to distinguish.

The difference is also apparent in another fact: Visibility keywords are
just boolean flags on Reflection, Attributes have their own Reflection
object, they represent much more. They shouldn't be mixed up with keywords.

PHP is a language where most language constructs have ending delimiters.

- Statements end in Semicolon
- Function/Class/Method declarations end with a block closed by }
- Argument lists end with )
- Docblocks end with */
- Comments always end with EOL (the distinction here being its a single end
symbol, not ambiguous)

As such for language consistency it would be better for Attributes to be
enclosed by syntax, having a start **and* and ending symbol.


> Peter
>

--00000000000012ae7205ac85a7ab--