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Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2023 19:30:00 +0100
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To: =?UTF-8?Q?Fl=C3=A1vio_Heleno?= <flaviohbatista@gmail.com>
Cc: someniatko <someniatko@gmail.com>, php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Official Preprocessor
From: olleharstedt@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olle_H=C3=A4rstedt?=)

2023-02-03 17:38 GMT+01:00, Fl=C3=A1vio Heleno <flaviohbatista@gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2023 at 6:19 AM Olle H=C3=A4rstedt <olleharstedt@gmail.com=
>
> wrote:
>
>> 2023-02-02 15:19 GMT+01:00, someniatko <someniatko@gmail.com>:
>> > Hi Internals
>> >
>> > The main gist:
>> > --------------
>> >
>> > I suggest to introduce an official type-checker / static analyser /
>> > preprocessor / transpiler for PHP, somewhat similar to TypeScript in
>> > the JavaScript world, which will allow to introduce the features
>> > otherwise impossible for the PHP world, at the cost of including an
>> > additional transpilation step.
>> >
>> > The reasoning:
>> > --------------
>> >
>> > You all know there are a lot of problems with the language, especially
>> > large gaps with the current type system, which have large community
>> > demand to overcome, but still cannot be solved due to the paradigm
>> > chosen by PHP. And the paradigm is to be statically typed (to some
>> > extent), but dynamically checked language, which limits the number of
>> > available options due to performance reasons.
>> >
>> > The introduction of static types have gradually eliminated the need of
>> > using external means of communicating the types (phpdoc @param and
>> > @return annotations), replacing them with native language constructs,
>> > making the language more expressive and enterprise-ready. However,
>> > there are a lot of things still missing, like types of arrays,
>> > including lists, hash-maps and structure-like arrays, and of course
>> > generic classes and functions. These are still covered nowadays with
>> > external means like phpdoc annotations and static analysers / type
>> > checkers to validate them. This leaves PHP in the odd mixture of
>> > native types and externally validated annotations via comments.
>> >
>> > Paradigm of a dynamically checked language also leaves out the problem
>> > of type-checking before running the code. Even though the types are
>> > defined statically, you still have to physically run the code, with
>> > all possible execution paths, to catch a type error. To avoid that you
>> > still would have to use an external typechecker / static analyser,
>> > even if PHP could cover 100% of type demand natively.
>> >
>> > Python solves this problem nicely I think. It is dynamically typed,
>> > but it allows a special syntax for static types and also has a
>> > separate static type checker. I think this is really a good approach
>> > and it would be great if PHP followed this path for the beginning, but
>> > we have what we have already.
>> >
>> > There were attempts to create preprocessors for PHP (like PHP++ IIRC),
>> > which allowed features like generics, but they did not gain enough
>> > popularity, weren't baked by large enough companies, didn't make their
>> > way to major IDEs support. I believe the only solution is to make an
>> > official one.
>> >
>> > Therefore, I suggest the following thing:
>> > 1. Introduce a new #declare directive which will mark the file as
>> > requiring pre-processing.
>> > 2. Let PHP introduce special features that only work in such
>> > "pre-processing required" files, such as typed lists and generics.
>> > 3. Implement a static type-checker in PHP that will verify those typed
>> > lists and generics are indeed used in a valid way.
>>
>> No need to waste resources implementing a new one when we already have
>> two very competent already: Psalm and Phpstan? Or why is those not
>> enough for your use-case?
>>
>> "The greatest enemy to a perfect solution is a good enough solution
>> already in place." ;)
>>
>> Olle
>>
>> --
>> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
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>>
>>
> Why not follow the steps of other projects that have been created
> independently from the core and,
> at some point, gained enough support/traction that were incorporated into
> it?

You'd have to rewrite Psalm or Phpstan in C if you want it to be part
of php-src. Or write a completely new project.

Olle