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Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:52:59 -0600
To: "php internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] "TryX" idom for Enumerations
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021, at 2:27 PM, Ben Ramsey wrote:
> > On Jan 10, 2021, at 20:09, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> w=
rote:
> >=20
> > On Sun, Jan 10, 2021, at 4:40 PM, Mark Randall wrote:
> >> On 10/01/2021 21:27, Larry Garfield wrote:
> >>> The "a method that begins with try is nullable, so watch out" idio=
m is present in C# and Rust, but to my knowledge has never existed in PH=
P.  That doesn't make it bad; it actually combines quite well with the n=
ull coalesce operator to allow for default values, making a valueOrDefau=
lt() method unnecessary.


> I have no problem introducing this idiom (or similar). In fact, I welc=
ome it.
>=20
> In userland, the same concept is often achieved with methods like=20
> `fromOrNull()`, and as Mark points out, the word =E2=80=9Ctry=E2=80=9D=
 makes me think=20
> the method should throw an exception if it fails. I=E2=80=99m not advo=
cating=20
> for `xOrNull()`, though, since I think that smacks of Hungarian=20
> notation, but maybe we can come up with something that is a more=20
> PHP-ish name. ;-)
>=20
> =E2=80=9CThere are two hard things in computer science: cache invalida=
tion,=20
> naming things, and off-by-one errors.=E2=80=9D --Phil Karlton
>=20
> Cheers,
> Ben

Do you have a suggestion for a better, more PHP-ish naming convention?

"It's what other languages use and they don't have a problem" is a valid=
 argument, but not a slam dunk so alternate naming patterns are on the t=
able.

--Larry Garfield