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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: [PHP6] Function name consistency
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

On 29/01/2014 14:55, Levi Morrison wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>wrote
>> If we're going to do anything, be aggressive and far-reaching with it.
>> Build a proper language-level OOP design for string/array manipulation.
>>
> This is a completely honest, sincere question: Why should the language
> itself use an object-oriented design for everything it provides?
>

Well, the reason that's most relevant to this discussion is that it's an 
excuse for a clear distinction between the old and the new.

For instance: join() is an alias of implode(), which can take arguments 
in either order, or take only one argument; split() is a deprecated 
regex function not to be confused with explode(), which always takes (at 
least) 2 arguments, in a set order. Those function names have got to 
retain at least some of their behaviour - or be removed permanently - 
for as long as we still consider it the same language.

However, with an "object-like" string interface you have a completely 
blank slate to design a clean interface alongside the old functions: 
$string->split('x')->join('y') perhaps.

Another inconsistency often complained about is argument order; for a 
lot of operations, one parameter is the natural "subject" of the action, 
so you could have $array->map($function), $array->filter($function) 
rather than array_map($function, $array) and array_filter($array, 
$function).

The downside, I admit, is it might "feel less like PHP". But there's a 
lot of object-oriented PHP out there where this would look quite at home.

The only other way I can think of making a clean break from the messes 
in the current global namespace is to make new *namespaced* versions of 
the basic functions, like string\split, array\join, etc. Maybe even put 
all the existing functions into a legacy\ namespace which you could 
"use", although that might be a bit of a pain to work with. But unlike 
OO, that leaves us with potentially more to type for the new names than 
the old, which seems a shame.

Basically, adding OO-style could feel like a proper tidy-up, rather than 
just re-painting a few bits that are easy to reach.

-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]