Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:88242
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 209.85.212.171 as permitted sender)
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <CAKws9z27kVJ87Ur5Qo+ayYHPeeO=aYKpRHUV4TFBXX2iMcgO2A@mail.gmail.com>
 <55DDD60F.5090509@gmail.com>
 <8C74463E-DBA2-4015-8159-0B44D973387F@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <55DE0907.6040904@gmail.com>
 <1F615BCD-1B9B-4C51-A210-869F1AA1F6E3@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <55E5EBBF.6020803@gmail.com>
 <0BA3A129-D356-4781-B6DE-E2B5A7924AE2@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <55E6EC36.6090301@gmail.com>
 <E1C02A1A-EB7C-40D9-8760-13627CC7BF85@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <9AF329EC-99A5-412D-A52B-432627A5520F@gmail.com>
 <6F4D91EE-B56E-4B83-B1AF-598C3F6897FC@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <55F07BA4.2000204@gmail.com>
 <E8634CF1-C2B4-4C5A-8DDC-531D9599774B@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <55F6B911.9080400@gmail.com>
 <96BE7F01-D04B-483B-B1A3-B45CED6DFCDC@craigfrancis.co.uk>
 <55F6F08C.1020506@gmail.com>
 <0BEF6D82-CB5F-49F6-A3A4-3267924A0CDA@thesba.com>
 <55F72CA9.2060301@gmail.com>
 <09369945-76FE-4E08-9C2C-15FB0577AD27@thesba.com>
 <55F752E7.9070801@gmail.com>
 <D062C4F7-B56E-422F-A563-C7C4A16D36B0@thesba.com>
Message-ID: <55F9747F.4070708@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 14:54:07 +0100
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/38.2.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <D062C4F7-B56E-422F-A563-C7C4A16D36B0@thesba.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP 7.1 - Address PHPSadness #28?
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

Robert Williams wrote on 15/09/2015 10:38:
> variable existence is referenced throughout the docs along with null-ness (e.g., the docs for isset() say it returns true if the variable, "is set and is not null" and if the variable, "exists and has value other than null")

I want to pull this out for a bit more attention: one of the crucial 
questions in this thread is whether the language is wrong, or just the 
documentation. There's one particularly wonky passage someone found in 
the manual that makes it sound like unitialised variables have an 
intrinsic type when accessed, rather than just referring the reader to 
the rules on casting null to any given type; when I have time, I will 
find and reword it.

Documentation can be fixed without backwards- and forwards-compatibility 
concerns, although the parsed copy of the documentation cached in the 
heads of the programming community is harder to update.

Changing the language to match the documentation, on the other hand, 
would be rather odd, so how the manual describes the language can only 
ever take second place to what the language actually does.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]