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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Autoboxing in php 5.1
From: ante.dfg@moj.net (Ante Drnasin)

John Coggeshall wrote:
> To be clear:
> 
> Although I think this might be implemented as some sort of object I am
> not interested in making objects out of everything. All I want is this:
> 
> function foo(Integer $a, Float $b, String $c, Boolean $d) {
> 
> }
> 
> and be able to introspect against that... how that ultimately gets
> implemented (likely PHP would auto-cast that to an int) doesn't matter
> to me... but the point here is I think the ability to have more
> *optional* meta-data associated with function declarations shouldn't be
> brushed off as nonsense when there are real benefits to the ability.
> 
> John
> 
> On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 15:51, John Coggeshall wrote:
> 
>>>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

Exactly!