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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: [PHP6] Function name consistency
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

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Yasuo Ohgaki wrote (on 27/01/2014):
> I understand this argument. Since we have short release cycle and 
> rather short life for a release, this is short term disadvantage. They 
> may keep using aliases functions also.

At the moment, the short release lifetime is rather more theoretical 
than proven. PHP 5.3 was released nearly 5 years ago, but some surveys 
put 5.2 at a 30% share, e.g. 
http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php/5/all

What's more, the more radically each version changes, the longer it will 
take to be adopted, and the more pressure there will be to support older 
versions in parallel. (I'm talking here about 3rd parties supporting 
their code, not PHP.net supporting the implementation.)


>
>     A long overlap with multiple names for everything has its costs,
>     and a short overlap with lots of breaking changes also has its cost.
>
>
> Keeping inconsistent names have its cost also.

A good point.


> IMHO, aliases would not affect readability. Users would understand what
>
> word_wrap() and wordwrap()
> htmlspecialchar and html_special_chars()
> and so on
>
> means.

But they might wonder if there was a difference between them, 
particularly if the aliases are more distinct (e.g. count() vs sizeof()).

> I agree that automatic aliasing would not be good.
> String and array function names needs more discussion.
> GD function names may be aliased automatically, for example.
>
> We should discuses if we are going to add standard name aliases
> to module functions or not, perhaps?

Yes, I think per-module / extension is the way to go - as with the pg_* 
functions you mentioned earlier.

It can then be proposed that a certain module be converted to OO (as 
happened with DateTime), another tidied up to have a consistent naming 
structure, and another left alone until more "interesting" changes are 
being made to it.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]

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