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Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 11:33:32 +0200
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Subject: Fwd: [PHP-DEV] Introducing "Array Of" RFC
From: narf@devilix.net (Andrey Andreev)

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On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 1:05 AM, Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com>wrote:

> Hi!
>
> > It's easily readable and everybody should be able to recognize what this
> > thing does even without prior knowledge.
> >
> > Hell, why not Array[Foo|Bar|stdClass|whocares] ?
> >
> > Or even (at a later stage):
> >
> >   Array[]["key1", "key2"]
>
> I don't think inventing another language to specify types inside PHP is
> a good idea. If somebody is really into type calculus, there are many
> academic languages to play with. In practice, such byzantine constructs
> rarely make developer's work easier on tasks that PHP is commonly
> applied to. If you want a language that can run code to check if your
> array conforms to arbitrary set of rules, what's wrong with PHP language?
>

Maybe I wasn't clear enough about it, but I did note several times that
what you quoted is not in the current scope of the RFC we're discussing.
I was trying to explain how this syntax would be forward-compatible and
instead of commenting on my main point, you take this single part out of
context and somehow manage to twist it like I was saying something against
PHP - not cool.

Anyway, I'm not attempting to invent another language (or rather, a
"sub-language") for type hinting. In fact, I was trying to make it more
similar to PHP's current syntax. Array typehints currently are written via
the 'Array' keyword, hence why I find the originally proposed 'className[]'
to be a bit bizzare. The '|' character is indeed new into this, but it is
close enough to the || "or" operator that everybody is familiar with and a
comma wouldn't really hint at "or" at first glance.

Cheers,
Andrey.

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