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Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 20:53:37 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] PHP Annotations VS Attributes
From: me@kelunik.com (Niklas Keller)

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Fleshgrinder <php@fleshgrinder.com> schrieb am Mi., 27. Apr. 2016 22:11:

> I am writing this in a separate thread because of the urgency that I see
> regarding the naming of past, current, and future proposals regarding
> this functionality.
>
> It was and is proposed to create this feature with the name *Attributes*
> as Facebook did in their Hack language. Main argument is to blindly
> follow /because/.
>
> On 4/25/2016 10:31 AM, Dmitry Stogov wrote:
> > Different languages names this differently.
> > I may add an additional voting question - "annotation vs attributes?".
> >
>
> It is true and only natural that different languages choose different
> names for equivalent features but this discussion is not about taste,
> style, nor coolness. It is about natural language, proper computer
> science terminology, and what PHP users will search for in search
> engines. I already tried to explain this in the actual thread but I
> guess my attempts resulted in more confusion than clarification, let me
> try again.
>
> #### ATTRIBUTE ####
>
> The word *attribute* has several meanings in computer science and this
> is mainly due to its extremely generic nature:
>
> > a usually good quality or feature that someone or something has
> >
> > --- http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/attribute
>
> > In computing, an attribute is a specification that defines a property
> > of an object, element, or file. [...] For clarity, attributes should
> > more correctly be considered metadata. An attribute is frequently and
> > generally a property of a property.
> >
> > --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_%28computing%29
>
> This pretty much sums it up already. An attribute is the metadata that
> is attached to an element of source code. This metadata is anything
> unessential that is additionally added but not necessarily required.
>
>   class A {
>     var $x;
>   }
>
> The `class` and `var` keywords are essential in this example and define
> the actual element and the names are required too.
>
>   public final class A {
>     private static int $x = 42;
>   }
>
> Class A has the attributes `public` and `final`.
> Property `$x` has the attributes `private`, `static`, `int`, and `42`.
>
> All of these attributes of the class and the property add additional
> metadata to the source code elements that define their qualities or
> features and consequently their behavior and usage.
>
> http://www.onelook.com/?w=attribute&ls=a
> http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/attribute
>
> Sebastian Bergmann already explained this but I think it is important to
> be repeated and further clarified. The word attribute is often used to
> refer to properties with additional metadata (e.g. access modifiers,
> default values, ...; illustrated above) in an OO context. This makes the
> usage of the word attribute additionally to its generic nature ambiguous
> as well:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_%28computing%29
>
> http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/instance+attribute
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instance_variable
>
> http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/static+attribute
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_variable
>
> *All* userland implementations that are called /attributes/ in the free
> and open world deal with completely different things:
>
> https://packagist.org/search/?q=attribute
>
> Last but not least, Perl has /attribute/ support. However, Perl actually
> uses it for interaction with *all* attributes that can be set. Hence,
> this is what attributes really do.
>
> http://perldoc.perl.org/attributes.html
>
> #### ANNOTATION ####
>
> > Extra information associated with a particular point in a document or
> > program. Annotations may be added either by a compiler or by the
> > programmer. They are not usually essential to the correct function of
> > the program but give hints to improve performance.
> >
> > --- http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/annotation
>
> http://www.onelook.com/?w=annotation&ls=a
>
> The term *annotation* is not only used by Java:
>
> https://packagist.org/search/?q=annotation
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annotation
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_annotation
>
> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd901590%28VS.95%29.aspx
> http://docs.scala-lang.org/tutorials/tour/annotations.html
> https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/annotations.html
> https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3107/
> https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Annotations
> http://ceylon-lang.org/documentation/1.2/tour/annotations/
> http://clojure-doc.org/articles/ecosystem/core_typed/start/annotations.html
> https://www.dartlang.org/effective-dart/style/
> ...
>
> https://rubygems.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=annotation
> http://rustbyexample.com/scope/lifetime/explicit.html
> https://www.google.de/search?q=javascript+annotation
> ...
>
> Ignoring these facts just because Facebook did not do proper research is
> a total no go. It is also not up for a vote, it is just proper English
> and computer science terminology!
>
> Last but not least, it also ensures that users find the correct PHP
> manual page when they search for this new feature that might make it
> into core at some point. :)
> --
> Richard "Fleshgrinder" Fussenegger
>

I agree with all of that, +1.

>

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