Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:114088
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <CAH5C8xVaVtH=SieiObYKAuo2f5jTtuwAZeVB_hyXyw=aQG6a4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <004701d73549$6dbc9840$4935c8c0$@jhdxr.com>
 <CAH5C8xUw=FAa2NqKcFBNKE+rJTu+wZ9o8MhDO0OR78FcDTjwmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c501d7368e$922938f0$b67baad0$@jhdxr.com>
 <CAH5C8xXAr6=1uJSContz_N1eFxxe0mwpZE0A5REgoUPT83RQ9A@mail.gmail.com>
 <866BBB78-85D0-4C97-87FC-63E526CDDF9F@cschneid.com>
Message-ID: <e0536e9f-5133-dcc5-eca8-ad4df29a6469@gmx.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2021 17:08:33 +0200
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/78.9.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <866BBB78-85D0-4C97-87FC-63E526CDDF9F@cschneid.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Language: en-US
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Final constants
From: a.leathley@gmx.net (Andreas Leathley)

On 21.04.21 15:14, Christian Schneider wrote:
> I never really understood the desire to restrict how people can use
> your code.
> If there is no good reason to override the value of a class constant peo=
ple won't do it.
> If there might be a good reason (even one you as the original designer d=
idn't predict) then why not leave that door open.
>
> While I understand the theoretical benefit of being able to specify this=
 behavior I do think it is almost always counter productive and not a patt=
ern I would encourage. Especially not in a dynamic language like PHP.

Such restrictions also convey information and intent. One could argue
defining a specific return type to a method is restricting its use, but
it also clarifies how something should work and avoids unintended
changes. final constants might be more niche, but it gives you a choice
on how you want a class constant to behave if child classes are
necessary and possibly done by someone else.

Having "final" for constants seems a good addition to me, especially if
the inconsistent behavior with interface constants can be solved at the
same time.