(Planned) Straw poll: Naming pattern for `*Deque` View as Markdown

Hi internals,

Because the naming choice for new datastructures is a question that has been asked many times,
I plan to create another straw poll (Single transferrable vote) on wiki.php.net to gather feedback on the naming pattern to use for future additions of datastructures to the SPL,
with the arguments for and against the naming pattern.

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespaces_in_bundled_extensions recently passed.
It permits using the same namespace that is already used in an extension,
but offers guidance in choosing namespace names and allows for using namespaces in new categories of functionality.

The planned options are:

1. \Deque, the name currently used in the RFC/implementation. See https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deque#global_namespace

   This was my preference because it was short, making it easy to remember and convenient to use.
2. \SplDeque, similar to datastructures added to the Spl in PHP 5.3.

   (I don't prefer that name because SplDoublyLinkedList, SplStack, and SplQueue are subclasses of a doubly linked list with poor performance,
   and this name would easily get confused with them. Also, historically, none of the functionality with that naming pattern has been final.
   However, good documentation (e.g. suggesting *Deque instead where possible in the manual) would make that less of an issue.)

   See https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deque#lack_of_name_prefix (and arguments for https://externals.io/message/116100#116111)
3. \Collection\Deque - the singular form is proposed because this might grow long-term to contain not just collections,
   but also functionality related to collections in the future(e.g. helper classes for building classes
   (e.g. ImmutableSequenceBuilder for building an ImmutableSequence), global functions, traits/interfaces,
   collections of static methods, etc.
   (especially since https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespaces_in_bundled_extensions prevents more than one level of namespaces)

   Additionally, all existing extension names in php-src are singular, not plural. https://github.com/php/php-src/tree/master/ext
   (Except for sockets, but that defines socket_* and class Socket and I'd assume it would be named Socket\ anyway, the rfc didn't say exactly match?)

   So the namespace's contents might not just be Collections, but rather all functionality related to a Collection)
   Also, the examples in the "namespaces in bundled extension" RFC were all singular

   > For example, the array_is_list() function added in PHP 8.1 should indeed be called array_is_list()
   > and should not be introduced as Array\is_list() or similar.
   > Unless and until existing array_*() functions are aliased under an Array* namespace,
   > new additions should continue to be of the form array_*() to maintain horizontal consistency.

NOTE: This later was changed to Collections\\, I misread the namespaces in bundled extensions RFC, and sub-namespaces are allowed

   See https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deque#global_namespace (and https://externals.io/message/116100#116111)

   Also, straw polls for other categories of functionality (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/cachediterable_straw_poll#namespace_choices)
   had shown interest of around half of voters in adopting namespaces,
   there was disagreement about the best namespace to use (e.g. none that were preferred to the global namespace),
   making me hesitant to propose namespaces in any RFC. For an ordinary collection datastructure, the situation may be different.

While there is considerable division in whether or not members of internals want to adopt namespaces,
I hope that the final outcome of the poll will be accepted by members of internals
as what the representative of the majority of the members of internals
(from diverse backgrounds such as contributors/leaders of userland applications/frameworks/composer libraries written in PHP,
documentation contributors, PECL authors, php-src maintainers, etc. (all of which I expect are also end users of php))
want to use as a naming choice in future datastructure additions to PHP.
(and I hope there is a clear majority)

---

Are there any other suggestions to consider for namespaces to add to the straw poll?

Several suggestions that have been brought up in the past are forbidden by the accepted policy RFC (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespaces_in_bundled_extensions)
and can't be used in an RFC.

• Spl\, Core\, and Standard\ are forbidden: "Because these extensions combine a lot of unrelated or only tangentially related functionality, symbols should not be namespaced under the Core, Standard or Spl namespaces.
    Instead, these extensions should be considered as a collection of different components, and should be namespaced according to these."
• More than one namespace component (A\B\) is forbidden
• Namespace names should follow CamelCase.

The straw poll https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deque_straw_poll has been written, and voting on the straw poll will be started on Wednesday, January 12th.

The naming option was also changed to Collections\ on reflection, as proposed in https://externals.io/message/116100#116119

Are there any arguments for/against the naming choices that you'd like to see in the straw poll?

Thanks,
Tyson

Hi Tyson,

While there is considerable division in whether or not members of internals want to adopt namespaces,
I hope that the final outcome of the poll will be accepted by members of internals
as what the representative of the majority of the members of internals
(from diverse backgrounds such as contributors/leaders of userland applications/frameworks/composer libraries written in PHP,
documentation contributors, PECL authors, php-src maintainers, etc. (all of which I expect are also end users of php))
want to use as a naming choice in future datastructure additions to PHP.
(and I hope there is a clear majority)

---

Are there any other suggestions to consider for namespaces to add to the straw poll?

Several suggestions that have been brought up in the past are forbidden by the accepted policy RFC (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespaces_in_bundled_extensions)
and can't be used in an RFC.

• Spl\, Core\, and Standard\ are forbidden: "Because these extensions combine a lot of unrelated or only tangentially related functionality, symbols should not be namespaced under the Core, Standard or Spl namespaces.
  Instead, these extensions should be considered as a collection of different components, and should be namespaced according to these."
• More than one namespace component (A\B\) is forbidden
• Namespace names should follow CamelCase.

Besides the namespace thing (collection is fine imho). What is the
reason to have it final?

For collection in general, would it make sense to have a common
interface representing the minimum expected API? If possible, then
algorithm specific on top? a bit like we have with the traversable
interface and related.

best,

Pierre

@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org