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Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 13:23:40 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC][Vote] Auto-capture closures
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

On 01/07/2022 15:04, Larry Garfield wrote:
> Greetings, Internalians.
>
> The vote for auto-capture closures is now open.  It will run until 15 July.
>
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/auto-capture-closure
>

I have voted No, because although I am more-or-less convinced that 
auto-capture is a useful feature, I don't think this is the right syntax 
for it.

- Having "fn" and "function" mean almost the same thing, but with such 
an important difference, feels like a WTF waiting to happen.

- The RFC seems to take for granted that shorter syntax is better, 
calling explicit syntax "noise"; but in that case PHP contains a lot of 
"noise", and I'm not convinced that removing it would be a good thing.

- This emphasis also implies that auto-capture is a near-universal 
improvement over explicit capture, rather than an alternative on equal 
footing: it is the version that deserves the very best syntax possible. 
I remain unconvinced by this.

- Unlike other languages, PHP normally relies on opting into scope 
imports (global, $this->, etc), so lacks a mechanism to opt out and 
declare a variable as local (var, let, etc). The proposed syntax offers 
neither opt-in nor opt-out, relying on the implementation to do the 
right thing automatically ... most of the time.


To re-iterate, I am not opposed to the feature in principle, but would 
have loved to see a more open exploration of different syntax options.


Regards,

-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]