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Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:31:35 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Renaming "strict types" to "scalar type coercion"
To: David Gebler <davidgebler@gmail.com>
Cc: internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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From: landers.robert@gmail.com (Robert Landers)

On Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 11:04=E2=80=AFPM David Gebler <davidgebler@gmail.co=
m> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 18 Jun 2024, 17:40 Robert Landers, <landers.robert@gmail.com> wro=
te:
>>
>> Hello internals,
>>
>> Many, many people start their files fairly religiously:
>>
>> <?php declare(strict_types=3D1);
>>
>> and I say "religiously" because from talking to people in real life,
>> reddit, workplaces, etc, very few php programmers actually know what
>> this does but do it nonetheless.
>
>
> I think there's almost certainly a degree of truth, not just in PHP but p=
rogramming in general, in the idea that there are many people who will blin=
dly follow a convention for no better reason they once heard someone they c=
onsidered more senior than themselves say the words "best practice"
>
> But I don't think the meaning of strict_types in PHP is unclear. It's rig=
ht there in the manual https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.declara=
tions.php#language.types.declarations.strict
>
> If anyone is daft enough to use a language feature without referencing wh=
at it means or what it does, let them clean up any problems which arise for=
 them as a result.

The problem isn't so much this, but in that it has become a dogma to
"have working types" and trying to explain why they do or do not
need/want it in the current context becomes a hopeless argument
because you are attacking their world-view instead of having an
academic argument.

>
> If I were to support any change to how this feature works for PHP 9, I th=
ink it would be providing a mechanism to enable it for all files at once, m=
aybe either via a .ini setting such as strict_types_default=3D1 or a new de=
clare which applies to all files included or autoloaded from that point on,=
 i.e. a declare that could be used as the first line of an entrypoint scrip=
t to make all files in a project have strict typing mode enabled/disabled (=
unless a particular file overrides for its own scope with its own declare).

I've explicitly written code without strict types because, in that
context, I want coercion (mostly when dealing with env vars)
surrounded by files with strict types enabled. Multiple steps would
have to be taken to make this possible (i.e., requiring the setting on
every file, whether off or on), negating the entire feature of having
it set globally. There may be a path where this makes sense, but I
don't think we can get there from here.

>
> Changing the name to anything other than what it is now, with or without =
flipping the value, just seems like a major BC headache for no gain.
>
> -Dave

Robert Landers
Software Engineer
Utrecht NL