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Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 23:52:12 +1100
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To: Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa <ivan.enderlin@hoa-project.net>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP Specification
From: davidkmuir@gmail.com (David Muir)


On 25/03/2014, at 7:31 PM, Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa =
<ivan.enderlin@hoa-project.net> wrote:

> I am not sure to understand your proposal well, but instead of =
producing a full complete specification at first, we should focus on =
important features than other implementations do not support. Typically, =
the fact the `php` binary reads from its stdin is missing most of the =
time.
>=20
> I imagine to start the specification at different levels:
>=20
>  * the syntax, which is not easy since PHP grammars is ambigious but =
it's feasible in a reasonable time,
>  * the semantics, very very important, it will describe how data are =
represented, objects etc., how they behaves, it will clarify a lot of =
things
>  * the tool, i.e. the PHP architecture through SAPI, one of the most =
clever feature of PHP,
>  * the extension, how are they split in different directories, how to =
load them etc. (still from the user point of view)
>  * then the standard library, which includes ext/core, ext/standard, =
ext/stream etc.
>=20
> The goal is not, at first, to specify the behavior of all functions. =
This would be totally crazy. PHP has a big tests suite to check that. =
Before, the most important thing (for me) is to specify the langage =
(syntax, semantics and tool). This is a good start and a nice task since =
types, auto-boxing, generators etc., will be described in those parts.
>=20


I don't think the SAPI and extension parts should be part of a language =
specification. To me, those are implementation concerns.

Language should be concerned with syntax, semantics and standard =
libraries.

Cheers,
David=