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Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2022 18:41:12 +0100
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To: PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Experimental features
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

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On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 at 18:07, David Rodrigues <david.proweb@gmail.com> wrote:

> Another advantage in this sense is that it would be possible to have a
> single development branch for PHP 8.1 (current version) and 8.2
> (development version), for example, with the difference of some definitions
> in the code that activate or deactivate the experimental features already
> developed for the future version.
>


The problem I predict with this is that unless they have a convenient "hook
point", experimental features would lead to ugly code: they need to be
enabled at run-time rather than build-time, so are hard to optimise; and
they are going to be released after a short test cycle, so need to avoid
refactoring.

Maybe there are enough "hook points" in the engine that some categories of
feature could be implemented without too much disruption, but it's a
complex beast with a shortage of experts, so I'm wary of adding more
complexity.

I also agree with the previous comment that this would need to be coupled
with some way of monitoring the results - imagine we released an
experimental feature 3 months ago, what do we do exactly to find out if it
needs changing?

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]

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