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Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2015 09:58:38 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Scalar Type Hints
From: lester@lsces.co.uk (Lester Caine)

On 14/02/15 01:16, Andrea Faulds wrote:
>> - About the 'numeric' type you would introduce in a future RFC, would you (in strict mode) allow everything accepted by is_numeric() or is it just a shortcut for 'int|float’ ?
> The idea is just int or float (except in weak mode of course, where it needs to accept strings etc.). But that makes the naming possibly misleading. I’d prefer “number”, but that’d be a BC issue I expect. But that’s for a different RFC.

Just how often have we had 'But that’s for a different RFC' in the past
where things have not been fully thought out for a major feature. There
are a number of areas that either required reworking or changes later
because the whole problem had not been thought out. The whole idea of
'hinting/checking' is so important and I would take things a lot more
seriously if there was a way of hinting at what a function required
rather than some nebulous wrapper which may even change itself. strict
typing is used by compiled languages to ensure that the right SIZE of
parameter is passed. Simply saying 'int' and then even allowing some
unconstrained object to be passed is not my idea of data management!

The fact that this issue as had the biggest vote I have ever seen shows
how passionate people are about it and not having a vote on the matter
does irritate me, but I do have a get out clause, I don't have to use
PHP7 which is a shame because what I have working so far IS good. This
is going to be like PDO, half baked and missing the point. Just like PDO
we need a decent library that manages type constraint properly and that
will be even more important if the vote on bigint goes through and
destroys what remaining size management we do have! The vast majority of
parameters DO have a limit on their size.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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