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Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 18:44:32 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Configurable callback to dump results of
 expressions in `php -a`
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

On 03/01/2021 16:11, tyson andre wrote:
> - The benefit is that dumping the result of expressions improves the default experience.
>    psysh wouldn't be installed by default when a new developer is learning php through the php manual, or when sshed into a remote server.


It doesn't feel to me that you've really answered Nikita's question: if 
all the code using these hooks is going to be distributed as userland 
code anyway, then they're not going to improve the default experience.

It feels like we need to go in one of two directions:

a) Build a full-featured official REPL with all of these improvements 
completely implemented out of the box. Limited extension hooks might 
still be desirable to build custom versions for frameworks etc, but they 
could be more targeted - for custom input, it could be "register 
meta-command"; for custom output, we already have __debugInfo() at the 
class level.

b) Expose the magic behaviour needed for something like PsySh to do 
everything `php -a` already can, and leave the rest to userland. So far, 
the only mentioned requirement is a special form of eval() that swallows 
fatal errors.

My feeling is that the current mood of the community favours (b) rather 
than (a); the most obvious example is that PHP used to bundle a PEAR 
executable, but Composer remains an entirely external project. Is there 
a reason not to aim for the same "de facto standard" for a REPL?

Regards,

-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]