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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 14:30:55 -0500
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To: Brian Moon <brianm@dealnews.com>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Namespaces in PHP 6 - ++$take
From: hans@velum.net (Hans Lellelid)

Brian Moon wrote:
>> Unfortunately namespaces are not only syntactic sugar, but dire
>> necessity
>> for PHP if it wants to be taken as a serious langauage and defend it's
>> position against other arising 'web scripting' alternatives.
>
> It seems the list of things that PHP needs to be "taken as a serious
> langauage" is never ending.  Before PHP 5, all that was needed was
> good OOP support.  Now this.  I am for namespaces, but that line is
> getting old and I, a professional, serious PHP developer and tired of
> hearing it.

I think that one reason why this list is never ending is that these
languages are constantly moving targets -- I would hope that what people
expected of a web development language would evolve over the course of
several years.  Daniel's project (coWiki) was one of the first (if not
the absolute first) to show us what was possible with PHP5 and
Exceptions; that was some pretty serious PHP.  I think what Daniel means
is that to remain competitive, PHP needs to include the features that
developers have come to expect of a language -- and developers are
constantly changing, maturing, working on bigger & bigger projects,
integrating more & more components.  I think PHP has been very
responsive to the needs of the constantly maturing user community,
drastically changing its language to support new & better OOP,
Exceptions, etc.  Indeed, this responsiveness to an increasingly OO
userbase is why many of us who started with PHP are still using it
today.  Namespaces may be the most fervent request lately, but it would
be very sad for PHP if it were to be the last.

Hans