Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:70665
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 209.85.212.176 as permitted sender)
Message-ID: <52AF4383.3070406@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:16:35 +0000
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.2.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <52ABFE84.8010404@cerny-online.com>
In-Reply-To: <52ABFE84.8010404@cerny-online.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Flexible function naming
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

Robert Cerny wrote (on 14/12/2013):
> When a PHP code base is growing over time it looks more and more 
> 'diverse', because of inconsistent function and method naming in core 
> PHP and third party libraries

This comes rather close to ignoring one of the pieces of advice on "The 
Mysterious PHP RFC Process and How You Can Change the Web" [1] which is 
linked to from the RFC HowTo on the PHP wiki [2]:

 > Don't start an RFC (or mail list discussion) about standardizing PHP 
function names and function argument orders

We all know that PHP's core functions are drastically inconsistent, but 
you need to be very sure you have a new and simple approach to solving 
that problem before expecting much enthusiasm for it.

> It should be possible to use 'array_key_exists', 'arrayKeyExists' or 
> 'arraykeyExists'.

This looks to me like making the language *more* inconsistent, not less. 
Why should different projects be able to call the same built-in function 
by different names?

If you're thinking more of third-party code not having matching coding 
conventions, then you might be interested in the work of the Framework 
Interoperability Group [3] who are aiming to agree a set of voluntary 
standards for just this kind of thing. That doesn't need any changes to 
the core language, just for framework and library authors to use an 
agreed set of conventions.

[1]: https://blogs.oracle.com/opal/entry/the_mysterious_php_rfc_process
[2]: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/howto
[3]: http://www.php-fig.org/

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]