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Cc: Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com>, internals@lists.php.net
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Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 13:16:02 -0500
To: Jochem Maas <jochem@iamjochem.com>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] $this->this and avoiding circular references
From: apinstein@mac.com (Alan Pinstein)

> regarding the actually topic of this thread I'm very interested
> in the concept of 'weak references' (as Apple seems to call them),
> what '$this->this' is all about, and whether using reference notation
> with object variable assignment is even allowed, whether it it makes
> a difference and what the future holds with regard to being able to
> use/create references to object 'handles'.

Yes, back to the thread :)

So a colleague on the propel-dev list has convinced me that my  
approach is bad, mostly because of how references behave in PHP.  
While doing my "research" I stumbled on to the fact that making  
references doesn't bump refcounts, and got so excited by the  
potential "solution" to my problem that I forgot about the flip-side  
of using references, which is that it binds the reference to the same  
place as the original. Thus, when the original changes, it changes  
the target of your "stored link". So my solution in the end won't  
work at all.

However, the need is definitely still there.

Andi briefly mentioned an alternative solution, and I am eagerly  
awaiting his complete response... c'mon with it Andi!

Another poster recommended that maybe PHP isn't the right "tool" for  
the job [of importing data]. This would imply that PHP is for your  
web pages, but no other part of your application. Well, if I am  
starting out on a new project, I'd like for the entire project to be  
in one language. I want to be able to have all of my business logic  
for my application's model in one place, and be able to use this core  
model from the web, scripts, etc.

This poster's comment would indicate that PHP's stated purpose is as  
a web tool only, and isn't intended as a project (now or in the  
future)  to be a universal solution to building applications. If this  
is the case, I'd consider it a shame, and it would have me seriously  
reconsider using PHP long term. A mindset like this is why there is  
such anti-php sentiment from the ruby and python people. Whether you  
like it or not, PHP has become a complete language platform. I like  
the PHP paradigm overall, but need to be able to have projects  
entirely in PHP for it to be worthwhile to use. If I have to develop  
my core model in Java [or whatever], I am not sure that I would use  
PHP to do the front-end.

Although, on a side note, I did recently use the excellent php-java- 
bridge to build a PHP front-end to a Java search engine, and it works  
very well. Not sure yet about performance, though.

Alan