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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Scalar Type Hints v0.2
From: smalyshev@gmail.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

Hi!

> detriment of coercive types simply because there is no general
> consensus about what "strict" means :)

I don't see any place for "consensus" and "non-consensus" here - unless
you want to redefine words to have arbitrary meanings so nobody
understands you, it is pretty clear what "strict" means - typing system
in which the variable marked with certain type accepts only value of
that type and nothing else. What other definition could you have in mind?

> But I also don't want to have coercive type hints to occupy the best
> "syntax slot" that could be used for more strict type checks

That's fine that you want your use case to be most convenient for you,
unfortunately that place has been already taken for years.

> debate. I'm just claiming that `(int) $num` is more explicit, has no
> BC breaks and should, IMMO, be the preferred choice.

No, it should not be, and I just wrote two mails explaining why exactly
it should not. Here's the third.

> Sorry, but this is the syntax used by the manual to describe functions
> usage, not the actual implementation. The manual can be updated. The

Of course, we can rewrite the whole manual and the whole language. The
question is - why we should make such huge changes if we already have
this meaning and it has been there for years and it always meant exactly
that - coercive typing for scalars - and never meant anything else?

> implementation itself can't be changed after major version release.

The manual is what people read and rely on. But there's a bigger issue
that you keep ignoring - that the functions having scalar typed argument
*are* coercive *right now*. You describe it as if it's a typo in the
manual that can be fixed or something that happened by accident and
nobody intended it. Nothing can be further from the truth - it's how
weak typing has been always working in PHP. You want new feature for
your use case? Fine, but claiming existing syntax for it and saying "no
problem we'd just rewrite the whole manual and disregard 20 years of PHP
history" sounds like a bit too much to ask.

-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com