Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:23449
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Message-ID: <B5.8B.19568.ABB99644@pb1.pair.com>
To: internals@lists.php.net
Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 11:30:27 +0200
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Macintosh/20060308)
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <785810036.20060511193536@ionzoft.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20060515210559.06acd350@zend.com> <1217741491.20060515174322@ionzoft.com> <89.E7.19568.50199644@pb1.pair.com>
In-Reply-To: <89.E7.19568.50199644@pb1.pair.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] private, protected, readonly, public
From: cschneid@cschneid.com (Christian Schneider)

Ron Korving wrote:
> Like you, I don't see why a 'readable' keyword should make things any more 
> complicated for beginners, because indeed, it is optional and beginners will 
> simply not use it. To me, this only shows the strength of PHP: suitable for 
> beginners and suitable for the enterprise.

Learning the language is getting more and more difficult.  Defining a 
variable used to be "var" (or no declaration at all). Then visibility 
was added (and choosing the right visibility is trickier not only for 
beginners than you might think), as was "static" and "final". Your 
argument that all the new constructs can be ignored if not needed has 
two flaws:
a) The language reference gets bloated
b) Learning by example (one of the selling points of PHP originally 
IMHO) is made harder than necessary

"Suitable for the enterprise" to me is a bit like "Linux, ready for the 
desktop": It's missing the point by trying to fit everybody's needs. 
What happened to the KISS principle and Unix philosophy of doing one 
thing and doing it right?

Just my two cents,
- Chris