Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:88401
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 209.85.212.174 as permitted sender)
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <8C126BF2-61EF-4296-BF13-E956B4066F4C@gmail.com>
References: <55FD2F61.9010603@lsces.co.uk>
	<8C126BF2-61EF-4296-BF13-E956B4066F4C@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 10:54:43 +0200
Message-ID: <CABM2syuDoN-euvRs9ckCFVjJAgpRB=sAjvC5svZ0BTN0QHGyDg@mail.gmail.com>
To: Rowan Collins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
Cc: internals@lists.php.net, Lester Caine <lester@lsces.co.uk>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=f46d044304e62e12b30520522600
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Coding styles ...
From: stig.bakken@gmail.com (Stig Bakken)

--f46d044304e62e12b30520522600
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

On Sep 19, 2015 15:50, "Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 19 September 2015 10:48:17 BST, Lester Caine <lester@lsces.co.uk>
wrote:
> >I get that a lot of people think that the only way forward with PHP is
> >fully typed, strict checking and blocking anything that may be deemed
> >to
> >be risky. However PHP7 has not yet dropped the simple object-less style
> >of programming that it originally developed from. That is why tidying
> >up
> >a simple procedural style of working still has a place. The debate on
> >'exists()' or to give it a tidier title 'variable_exists()' is more
> >about just how much of a procedural style of programming remains in PHP
> >in the future.
>
> I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not sure "procedural" is the right
keyword here. I know of no other language, however procedural, that allows
easy examination of the local symbol table to see if a variable exists. Nor
do most procedural languages allow "variable variables" and functionality
like extract() and compact(). However, I take the point that, whatever name
we give it, this is a style of coding PHP goes some way to supporting, and
there's no  fundamental reason not to expand that support.

Not to forget that something like variable_exists() would have to be a
language-level statement to avoid notices being raised.

So while having a more consistent syntax would be kinda sweet, we'd be
stuck with maintaining BC forever, and there will always be those "it's not
as simple as that" cases.

I think there are much better uses of the community's time.

- Stig

--f46d044304e62e12b30520522600--