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Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:31:44 -0600
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: RFC: Marking return values as important (#[\NoDiscard])
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From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Wed, Feb 12, 2025, at 5:52 AM, Volker Dusch wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 4:12=E2=80=AFPM Tim D=C3=BCsterhus <tim@bastel=
stu.be> wrote:
>> Volker and I would like to start discussion on our RFC to allow "Mark=
ing=20
>> return values as important (#[\NoDiscard])".
>>=20
>> Please find the following resources for your reference:
>>=20
>> - RFC: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/marking_return_value_as_important
>> - Implementation: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/17599
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> it's been two weeks, but given the feedback we received, we don't feel=20
> the discussion didn't reach a conclusive resolution yet.
>
> So we wanted to solicit additional opinions. In an attempt to summariz=
e=20
> the discussion, how we see it, there are two main points of contention=20
> we'd like to discuss further.

I'm still undecided on the RFC overall, but one thing that is problemati=
c is the phrasing of the messages.  Currently, the messages in the attri=
bute are fragments of an English sentence, seemingly designed to fit gra=
mmatically with a sentence fragment that is coded into the engine somewh=
ere but not readily available to developers.

From my phrasing I think you can guess my opinion of that.

That is impossible to document cleanly for English speakers.  It will no=
t translate at all for anyone who is writing in a non-English language (=
which people do).  People are going to get it wrong more than they get i=
t right, in any language.

Instead, the wording should be structured to be a complete sentence, and=
 the built-in message updated to make that logical.  That gives the deve=
loper much more freedom to write a meaningful, contextually-relevant mes=
sage in the language of their choice.

--Larry Garfield