Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:130003
Precedence: list
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <CAEwAiAFGGCiyR1dWPUDhFkjLpfYk7TsWgXWeixeQM=qqZhEkSQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAEwAiAFGGCiyR1dWPUDhFkjLpfYk7TsWgXWeixeQM=qqZhEkSQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2026 13:53:40 +0530
Message-ID: <CANLbj-pek6r04DA1=4m-T7x4gJmDQXLKgD5K6QEyjQjc7puCaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Trailing Boolean Operators
To: Len Woodward <len@artisan.build>
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
From: ayesh@php.watch (Ayesh Karunaratne)

>
> Trailing Boolean Operators
>
> If the link doesn't work, here's the raw url:
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/trailing_boolean_operators
>
> The TL;DR is that we allow what I'm calling a 'dangling' ('optional' might be the better word) trailing boolean operator. Mirroring trailing commas. It's designed to be a purely additive QoL improvement to help reduce diffs.
>

Hi Len,
I see that this is your first RFC, welcome, and well done on the RFC
draft. The RFC text is quite detailed, and clearly brings the idea
across. I appreciate that you explained your rationale, with simple
examples, and a well-defined scope. Greatly done.

As for the idea, however, I do not agree that this would be a
net-positive change. I wanted to echo what Ben said in his reply too.

Commas are fundamentally different from the operators like `&&` and
`||`. One is a separator, the other is an operator. Trailing
separators do not add to the confusion, and the benefits you mention
in the RFC are meaningful improvements that do not add to visual
confusion.

`&&` and `||` are binary operators that require a right-hand operand.
Your RFC removes this requirement from the syntax, but I believe they
semantically still require a right-hand operand.

I'm also not aware of any other languages that allow trailing
operators. For PHP to add trailing commas, it had a strong argument in
favor because other languages like JavaScript, Python, and of course C
(among many other languages) supported it, and adding support for
trailing commas was a natural progression. Back then, even this was
argued quite a lot in the RFC discussions, and some proposals did not
pass the vote.

As Ben mentioned, the new-line, operator, and operand pattern solves
the diff issue. Besides, changing the order of an `if` block is a
significant change, and at least for me, not something I do often. For
changes like this, I would rather like it to have a more visually
stark diff.

Thanks,
Ayesh.