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Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 14:47:35 -0500
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Attributes/Annotations Case Study: Drupal
From: larry@garfieldtech.com (Larry Garfield)

On 04/30/2016 06:21 PM, Rowan Collins wrote:
> On 30/04/2016 23:45, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
>> Oh, of course you can have methods, but then it is strange conceptually
>> - you have a normal class, which some other part of the language just
>> uses for something else that classes are not routinely used for. I.e.,
>> does it call a constructor? When? With which arguments? What if it
>> fails? What if I just create an object of this class - would it be the
>> same as annotation object?
>
> Hm... I was going to say "well, PDO does this if you use 
> PDOStatement::fetchObject"; but then I remembered that the integration 
> with the object there IS a bit weird - it injects raw properties, and 
> *then* calls the constructor.
>
> So, I'm not sure there's a limitation in terms of the object being 
> data-only per se, but there are certainly oddities to be dealt with in 
> terms of construction. And as you mentioned, mutability leads to 
> another set of oddities - are the mutations stored for next time you 
> request that annotation, or is the object recreated on each access?
>
> Regards,

It would never occur to me to not have it regenerated on each access.  
If I want to cache it I will do so myself, thanks. :-)

However, that is not an issue created by using a defined structure for 
the annotation result.  The RFC currently says it returns an associative 
array, aka anonymous struct.  Those are always highly mutable.  A 
classed object is as mutable as its design allows it to be.  To wit:

<<__Annotation>>
class Definition {
   protected $foo;
   protected $bar;
   public function getFoo() {}
   public function getBar() {}
}

<<Definition(foo => 1, bar => 2)>>
class Meep {}

The resulting annotation object would be an instance of Definition, 
which is for practical purposes immutable.  If it were returned as an 
array ['foo' => 1, 'bar' => 2], that would obviously be mutable.

Whether Definition should have mutator methods on it then becomes the 
implementer's decision, which is probably for the best.

--Larry Garfield