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Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 01:14:48 +0300
Message-ID: <CAPhkiZzPR6-Z5gjeyYqQT93b9yjGhOYVPDKUK_+gwJAstOxW7A@mail.gmail.com>
To: Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>
Cc: Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>, Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com>, Dmitry Stogov <dmitry@zend.com>, 
	PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Safe Casting Functions
From: narf@devilix.net (Andrey Andreev)

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 1:01 AM, Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> wrote:
> The RFC itself makes an assertion that fundamentally contradicts the notion
> that these are 'just functions'.  The RFC reads 'They also prevent any
> suggestion of strict type hinting for scalar types, because if that were to
> be added, users would simply use dangerous explicit casts to get around
> errors and the result would be code that is buggier than it would have been
> without type hinting at all.'  While it doesn't explicitly say so, it's
> clear that one of the goals of the RFC is make it easier for a 'strict
> typing' RFC to be accepted in the future.  This is a clear indication this
> constitutes a fundamental change to the core language.

I'd argue that it has the exact opposite goal - to be able to say "use
to_string(), to_int(), etc; we don't need strict type hinting".
Though, I'd also argue that this isn't a valid argument - it's a
different feature.

Cheers,
Andrey.