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Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:33:25 -0400
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Subject: 6.0 And Moving Forward
From: ircmaxell@gmail.com (Anthony Ferrara)

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Hey all,

I know that 6.0 was originally supposed to be the unicode conversion of the
engine. However it appears that all progress on that has stopped for quite
some time.

So, I was curious if we could start a conversation around what 6.0 would
look like if we didn't go the unicode route. What would be the major
changes that we'd base it on.

Here are a few of the ideas that have been floating around in my head.

1. Change the error handling system from the current E_* system to typed
exceptions for everything but advisory errors (E_STRICT, E_NOTICE,
E_DEPRECATED). Why? Because the current error system encourages ignoring or
not checking what the error was, and it makes defensive programming quite
difficult. This is arguable and preference for sure, but it's a major
change that could have large benefits.

2. Make namespaces first-class meta-objects. That way, you could have
namespace private and protected classes, functions, variables, etc. This
would allow for better scoping of modules...

3. Make all zval types pseudo-objects. Basically enabling something akin to
auto-boxing allowing a significant amount of the standard library to be
eventually deprecated in favor of acting on methods (not initially, but
opens the door).

4. Rewrite the entire parser completely. I keep hearing about how bad PHP's
parser is, and how it's growing out of control. Perhaps this is a good time
to rewrite it (perhaps changing semantics slightly) to be better adapted
towards future changes...

I'm not saying all of them are solid. I'm not saying any of them are solid.
But hopefully this can spark a discussion around it...

Thoughts?

Anthony

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