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Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 11:12:41 -0700
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To: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Cc: Terry Cullen <terry@terah.com.au>, Stephen Coakley <me@stephencoakley.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Pipe Operator
From: pollita@php.net (Sara Golemon)

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 9:30 AM, Fleshgrinder <php@fleshgrinder.com> wrote:
> On 5/3/2016 4:53 AM, Terry Cullen wrote:
>> Doesn't Nikic's scalar objects (https://github.com/nikic/scalar_objects)
>> more or less achieve the same thing while also cleaning up the std lib?
>>
>> $ret = scandir($arg)
>>     ->filter(function(){})
>>     ->map(function(){})
>>     ->merge($someOtherArray);
>>
>
> It is indeed a much better approach. The more I read and think about the
> pipe operator the more I am against it.
>
The difference with scalar objects is:
A) We need to agree on what methods these objects are going to have.
((And we won't agree))

We could maybe hedge our bets with a ->invoke(Callable) method that
pushes the value into an arbitrary closure, but that's just adding
complexity to... avoid adding complexity... o.O

B) It's not just about scalars.

$foo = SomeLibrary::create(...)
  |> SomeOtherLibrary::render($$)
  |> $foo->send($$);

Scalar objects don't help this case at all, and since the object
instances are coming from some third-party library, making them
instantiate extended children instead isn't necessarily a trivial
thing (arguments about poorly designed libraries aside).

I like the scalar objects approach as well.  Heck, I wrote one three
years ago: https://github.com/sgolemon/objectifier but I don't think
it solves the same problem space as pipe chaining.

-Sara