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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] annotations again
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

On 05/10/2011 01:10 AM, Jordi Boggiano wrote:
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Lars Schultz
>> To explain what I mean, I'll use the example provided in the RFC. Could
>> anyone please explain the advantages of having "passive" annotations over
>> "active" PHP Code.
>
> I think your example shows very well why annotations are good, it's
> much more concise.

By concise, you mean shorter, easier to read?

I have a really hard time looking at:

<Entity("users")>
class User {
     <Column("integer")>
     <Id>
     <GeneratedValue("AUTO")>
     <ManyToMany("Phonenumber")>
     protected $Phonenumbers;
}

as a PHP user and instantly understanding what this does. It looks 
completely foreign from a PHP syntax point of view.

Whereas:

class User_EntityAnnotation {
     public function getEntityName() {
         return 'users';
     }

     public function getColumnInfo($property) {
         switch($property) {
             case 'id': return array(
                 'column'=>'integer',
                 'isPrimary'=>true,
                 'autoIncrement'=>true
             );

             case 'Phonenumbers': return array(
                 'manytomany'=>'Phonenumber'
             );
         }
     }
}

is way more verbose, but I can instantly grok what is going on without 
learning a new syntax, without waiting for my opcode cache to support 
it, and without waiting for my editor to understand the new syntax.

Don't underestimate the difficulty in getting opcode cache support for 
something like this. If you think the engine code is complex, try 
digging into the opcode cache code. It will be much much harder to write 
the opcode cache support than it was to write the engine code for it.

I also have a personal problem with code that needs to introspect on 
every web request in order to run. But that is likely because I am old 
and gray and used to stare sceptically at the assembly output of the 
first C compilers to see if I could come up with an alternative that 
would take fewer cycles.

-Rasmus