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Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:50:53 +0000
Message-ID: <CAKxcST-ErkM_neyMbziAnAU5d6zVS9_YhGKREsi17Fm0a-bDMQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>
Cc: Keloran <ava3ar@gmail.com>, Dmitri Snytkine <dsnytkine@ultralogistics.com>, 
	Alain Williams <addw@phcomp.co.uk>, internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Return Type Hinting for Methods RFC
From: dragoonis@gmail.com (Paul Dragoonis)

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On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com> wrote:

> On 12/22/2011 07:08 AM, Keloran wrote:
> > i would love to see this expanded aswell (the way type hinting on
> function
> > variables was supposed to be), so that it could be
> >
> > string, int
> >
> > e.g.
> > function int test(bool $tester) {
> >  if ($tester) { return 5; }
> >  return 99;
> > }
>
> Return type hinting needs to be aligned with parameter type hinting, and
> as has been pointed out many times on this list, type hinting for
> interchangable scalar types is a really bad idea. It will push all type
> checking up to the caller of the underlying functions/methods. PHP is
> primarily a Web scripting language and the Web isn't typed. Having stuff
> like this break:
>
> if(age_check($_POST['age'])) { do_stuff(); }
>
> because the author of the age_check() function added an int type hint
> just doesn't make any sense. It would cause everyone to have to start
> casting things everywhere, just in case. eg.
>
> if(age_check((int)$_POST['age'])) { do_stuff(); }
>
> This is not a step forward. If the author of age_check() really doesn't
> want to accept type-juggled arguments, then it is easy enough to do a
> strict type check in the function itself. This puts the effort in the
> correct place and doesn't encourage this type of coding.
>

I agree with Rasmus.

My opinion:
This isn't java, if you want a strongly typed language, there's plenty out
there, but we're not looking to make PHP more like Java and the rest, if it
was like Java then it wouldn't have been successful for the web as it
is/was. PHP is popular because of the way it was from the start, if php
_needed_ scalar typehints then it wouldn't have been as popular.

There is need for the existing Typehinting for class types so you don't
need to have is_a() function calls. This makes sense.

Scalars are VERY powerful in PHP, because of its loose typed nature. Having
a 'numeric' typehint makes sense, because it can be an int, float, or
string. Adding typehints like 'int' and 'float' will only piss people off,
and make PHP more difficult and less fluent to code in.

Lets not go there please..

Thanks,
Paul Dragoonis.



>
> -Rasmus
>
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