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Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:53:48 -0400
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Flexible type hinting
From: ilia@ilia.ws (Ilia Alshanetsky)


On 2-Jul-09, at 4:56 AM, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:

>
> On 02.07.2009, at 10:45, Paul Biggar wrote:
>
>>> to work in a future with a library/framework that is strict about  
>>> its input
>>> or some far fetched idea that it will change the very nature of PHP.
>>
>> I don't think we are worried about it changing PHP, or about  
>> libraries
>> using strict type hints. We are worried that libraries will use no
>> hints, because the ones on offer are not useful to them.
>
>
> I think he is replying to me here. I am worried that with Ilia's  
> proposal, people will strictly type everything, even where weakly  
> typed would suffice. The reason being that developers are lazy. With  
> these type "hints" (they are not actually hints, but "checks" as you  
> already made clear), they can very easily move the burden of type  
> juggeling explicitly to the user of their code.
>
> At least in my world, I use a lot of 3rd party libraries, which will  
> then likely become essentially strictly typed. While strictly typing  
> can prevent bugs and all sorts of good stuff, we should be more  
> hesitant when it comes to giving people tools that make it easy  
> (encourage) to turn a core principle of PHP upside down.

First of all PHP is a tool, if some developers choose(!!) to adopt  
stricter practices (which I doubt will happen), then perhaps its time  
for the tool to change with them. As far as I know PHP is there to  
solve problems and make it easy to do so, not support/enforce certain  
programming paradigms.

> I know that "numeric" was a concession to people with my concern  
> from the last discussion. But it doesnt cover all the bases of  
> types. In that vain Paul's proposal does indeed provide a syntax  
> that at least enables both approaches. More importantly it proposes  
> a syntax that requires the same number of characters for both  
> approaches. You might laugh at this comment, but I believe that the  
> overuse of "private" that I am seeing has a lot to do with the fact  
> that its shorter than "protected".

Paul's proposal is some part does not make sense because it allows  
weak type hinting, which should not be used if you need type hinting.  
The whole idea about type hinting is definition of strict interfaces,  
not loosely based one. That's just my opinion, which admittedly I feel  
fairly strongly about.

Ilia