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Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:26:39 +0200
Message-ID: <CAF+90c_meLG0XaocbStj69vQpwQzrcW4fgvSSODiifHaqnu4xw@mail.gmail.com>
To: Stan Vass <sv_forums@fmethod.com>
Cc: Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com>, internals@lists.php.net
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Inline typecasting / typehinting for classes and interfaces
From: nikita.ppv@gmail.com (Nikita Popov)

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Stan Vass <sv_forums@fmethod.com> wrote:
> You're 10 years too late to argue the merits of typehints in PHP.
>
> I am not proposing the introduction of typehints. I'm just saying "we have
> the option to use them in arguments, let's have the options inline too."
> This way we can validate expressions and structures we can't today, in a
> minimal, readable, consistent, easy to maintain way.

Stas already pointed out that parameter typehints allow you to define
the interface for your method. Return typehints would server a similar
purpose and as such I'd consider them useful. But "variable" typehints
don't serve any such purpose. Actually, one could even say that they
don't serve *any* purpose, short of providing the IDE with type
information, because your code would work just as well even without
the type check. If the type were wrong, it would just throw a fatal
error when trying to do something with it (like invoking a method that
does not exist).

And if the sole purpose is type hinting for the IDE, then I don't see
what's wrong with the established system of PHPDoc comments. They seem
to serve the same purpose, don't they?

Nikita