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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] true namespaces, yet another point of view
From: lester@lsces.co.uk (Lester Caine)

Federico Lebron wrote:
> Tony Bibbs wrote:
>> I disagree here...it is both wanted and and needed.  This feature has 
>> been promised to the community for quite some time now and I'd simply 
>> remind you you do have the option of *not* using namespaces if you 
>> don't want too.  If you like REALLY_LONG_CLASS_NAMES that's still 
>> perfectly valid.  Don't like it, don't use it but I think working 
>> through the remaining issues and getting it out is important.  Making 
>> right decision on the approach is important too and from an outsiders 
>> point of view a lot of progress has been made and it now seems very, 
>> very close to being a reality.  Ditching it should be the last thing 
>> considered. 
>> I can't say it enough, if you don't like where the namespace 
>> implementation ends up you can simply decide not to use it.
>>
>> --Tony
> 
> As far as I know, that argument doesn't really fly here, since you might 
> not use it, but in a large PHP project, someone in your team will. "If 
> you don't like it, don't use it" doesn't hold since you still have to 
> understand, and possibly modify, your teammate's code. A similar point 
> was raised, IIRC, for the [1,2] short-array notation.
> This is particularly important because large codebases, usually with 
> several people touching the code, are the primary target for namespaces, 
> as opposed to short one-person form-processing scripts,.

In addition one of the main reasons FOR namespace is to make libraries easier 
to manage, so if our own code does not use them it's likely that some library 
we select will - at some point. Hence my comments previously about having to 
take more care keeping things like namespace under control when deploying 
applications which may not have 5.3 available to run on. BC up to now has been 
relatively easy to maintain, but I have a feeling that 5.3 SHOULD be a major 
version number change so that we can maintain PHP5 compatibility easier?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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