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Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2020 17:42:53 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Method parameter promotion support
From: pierre-php@processus.org ("Pierre R.")

Le 26/11/2020 à 17:30, David Rodrigues a écrit :
> Hello!
>
> It is just an idea to discuss. PHP 8 now supports parameter promotion via
> constructor. Could this idea also work for common methods?
>
> public function setAge(private int $age) {}
> ===
> private int $age;
> public function setAge(int $age) { $this->age = $age; }
>
> The only problem I can see would be the difficulty of identification of the
> possible properties, since it would be necessary to check all method
> signatures to know about all possible properties.
>
> In this case, perhaps, it would be enough to allow the promotion only if
> the property already exists.
>
> private int $age; // Required.
> public function setAge(private int $age) {}
>
> Just to think about whether it is possible to think of something along
> these lines, but I'm still not sure if it's a good option.
>
>
> Atenciosamente,
> David Rodrigues
>
It sounds weird for me, I can see two naive questions:

  - what will happen if you don't call the method, will the property 
still exists on the object ?

  - what will happen if you define it on more than one method ?

And one more serious regarding code readability and maintainability: for 
me, class constructors and classic class property definition acts 
together as an index, that I can read to know what's inside a type 
structure ; if you start to explode that everywhere in arbitrary places 
code and I have to read and understand in order to use it, I will get 
angry very quickly, If I can't find property definitions neither in 
their rightful place, nor in the constructor.

If you code looks like a puzzle that you have to solve in order to 
understand what it does, it's probably not that good.

I don't like this idea.

--

Pierre