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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Annotation PHP 7
From: larry@garfieldtech.com (Larry Garfield)

On 11/4/14, 3:31 PM, Stas Malyshev wrote:
> Hi!
>
>
>> Primarily, I do not see docblocks as the right place to store class'
> metadata information. Metadata != Comments.
>
> I personally regard this as a kind of superstition. There's nothing
> wrong with extending what can be in comments. In fact, Javascript was
> officially "HTML comment" for years, and it didn't prevent anybody from
> using Javascript. There are instances of significant comments in various
> environments. Outright refusing comments can be significant is just
> arbitrarily limiting our options for no reason. I don't say it
> necessarily the best option, but we should not reject it because "oh
> noes, significant comments!". It has been done, and it's nothing
> special, just one of the possibilities

Javascript is a good analogy, actually.  It started off as something you 
stuck in comments to hide it, just in case.  But really, no one does 
that anymore and hasn't for years.  Once it became obvious that it was 
useful, here to say, and any browser anyone cared about supported it 
directly it became a first-class citizen, without any comment hacks.

Annotations have been a comment hack in PHP for a long time now. They've 
proven their usefulness.  Many large projects use them.  They've been 
proven to work.  It's time for them to also become first-class citizens 
where we can all benefit from them in more robust ways, including 
simplifying the de facto workflow and toolchain.

--Larry Garfield