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Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:12:13 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] let construct (Block Scoping)
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From: imsop.php@rwec.co.uk ("Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]")

On 22/01/2026 09:12, Tim Düsterhus wrote:
> Hi
>
> we just opened the vote on the “let construct (Block Scoping)” RFC 
> (which was originally proposed as “use construct”, but the keyword 
> changed as a result of the discussion). 


I have voted No.

I really want block scoping as a feature in PHP, but I do not want this 
syntax.


For those who didn't follow the discussion thread, I will try to 
summarise my reasons:

- I don't think PHP is special enough to break with a strong tradition 
here. A huge family of languages use roughly the same syntax for 
variable declarations, even though they have very different details of 
how they work. That includes C and Java, but also JS and Perl, and even 
VisualBasic (all ultimately traceable to ALGOL).

- Users are likely to be coming from those related languages, 
particularly JS, and are likely to be confused by how this syntax works.

- For instance, they would not expect a comma-separated list to be 
equivalent to a set of nested blocks, which affects the behaviour of 
cases like let($a=new Foo, $a=new Bar)

- The use cases for combining with "if" or "foreach" are interesting, 
but the result is confusing - the important control flow keyword ends up 
in the middle of the line.

- For other use cases, requiring an extra block adds noise. For 
instance, if we ever add auto-capture closures, a JS-style a concise 
block-scoped declaration would be very useful to avoid accidental capture.


PHP itself already has "ALGOL-style" declarations, for "const", 
"global", and "static". I think adding a "let" or "var" keyword with the 
same syntax would be more consistent, and more useful.

There would be details to work out, but dozens of other languages to 
learn from.


My thanks to Seifeddine and Tim for their work on this, and to Tim in 
particular for patient and respectful discussion.


-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]