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Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:06:39 -0700
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Improving PHP's type system
From: smalyshev@gmail.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

Hi!

> Types are designed in a way enhancing the languages experience while
> avoiding nearly every impact for people who want to ignore them.

This is not true. If it's in language, you have to understand it to be
able to use the language. Nobody writes code in vacuum - there are
libraries, communities, teams, best practices, tutorials, etc. So if
(hypothetically) you want to introduce algebraic types in PHP, then
since that moment you can not really be a PHP programmer if you don't
understand algebraic types. Otherwise you would not be able to
communicate with the rest of the community, understand and use code
written by others, contribute to projects, etc.

> And that's why we shall continue on improving our *optional* type
> system.

That's a very broad statement which which everybody agrees - who's
against improving? Who'd want to make the type system *worse*? Nobody.
The specifics are more complicated - do we really need complex type
expressions in PHP to the point of inventing micro-language with its own
syntax to just specify a type? I don't think so.

-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com