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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:51:40 -0500
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Autoboxing in php 5.1
From: john@coggeshall.org (John Coggeshall)

> You did't answer my question. Why?

I am def. a fan of this idea. I'd love to see internally a set of
Java-style objects representing the basic types in PHP. 

As for why I have two reasons:

Although PHP is not a strongly-typed language and never will be, with
the introduction of type-hinting I feel that having a standard set of
objects representing the fundamental types in PHP will allow developers
of libraries to enforce the proper restrictions if they desire on the
types which end up in their functions. This further degree of control
over the architecture in a PHP class makes an architecture tighter and
easier to manage with growth.

More importantly than the concept of type-hinting, the lack of typing
information is holding PHP back signifcantly in the realm of Web
Services. Although for PHP applications as a whole typing has proven
itself largely unnecessary, without it making PHP a viable and "simple"
language for the creation of web services isn't feasible. How am I to
create a WSDL document from a class I would like to expose as a web
service? Do you honestly expect me to hand-write a WSDL document for my
object and maintain that WSDL alongside code changes manually? WSDL
documents were designed to be generated automatically by the
architecture exposing the web service, and without any notion of typing
in PHP at all there is no viable way to really do this.

Also let me point out that I am *not* suggesting that PHP become a typed
language. I am merely am suggesting that the ability for me to enforce
structure on my objects does indeed have a real benefit without breaking
backward compatibility or otherwise compromising the spirit of PHP.

John