At 23:27 04-02-07, Pierre wrote:
At 20:14 04-02-07, Pierre wrote:
Hi,
I personally find array extremely clear, in recent weeks I
had to do A LOT of JavaScript work where the array syntax
works in a manner you suggest for PHP and its a massive pain.
It does not make for a very clear code. I think the syntax
you propose is extremely confusing and we should stick to
what we have right now.If someone does not like this new syntax, he can stick to
array(). It is in no way an argument to refuse the new syntax
addition.We never believed in that approach and we're not about to start
now :).What I mean is that the new syntax does not any drawback besides
hurting a couple of people eyes (I'm pretty sure that most of our
users will like it). The changes have no effect on how your scripts
will run, not like the numerous changes we applied in 5.x until now.One of the key guidelines of the language definition process of PHP
was that we don't want multiple ways of doing the same thing, and we
don't buy the argument of 'why do you care? you can still do it the
other way'. Only if the new way is significantly better than the old
way of doing things (i.e. much faster / much simpler, etc.) we
consider it. I think it's been a very good guideline and helped us a
lot in keeping PHP relatively clean for a very long time.
I hadn't come across this as a stated PHP principle, and I actually
don't buy it either in respect of PHP[*] or in general. It's often the
case, as is becoming clear with this, that different people have widely
divergent views about what is clear and easy to use/read and what isn't,
and providing alternatives that suit both camps is to me a very positive
move -- you'd end up pleasing far more people far more of the time than
by sticking rigidly to the original option.
[*] I enter into evidence here the alternative ":" block structure,
which dates back further than I care to delve (but am extremely glad
of); many function (or language construct) aliases, such as print/echo,
exit/die; foreach in place of reset()/each(); 3 different ways (soon to
be 4) to write a string literal; and even the inclusion of string
slicing using (ironically) a [:] syntax on the PHP 6 feature list.
The new array syntax is arguably clearer (although some here
disagree). It's not MUCH clearer to the sense that it's a no
brainer, which makes things more complicated.
In your opinion. Personally, I find the [] syntax so much clearer that
I would rate it a no-brainer to include it. But, by the same token,
there are also people on here who would rate it a no-brainer not to
include it.
Finally, I really don't see the argument that the [] syntax is non-
obvious. If you're working with arrays at all, you have to know that
[] is used to subscript out individual elements, so it seems to me
abundantly clear that other uses of [] are most likely to be array-
related and a quick step to the Arrays section of the manual would be
in order.
OK, as a mere enthusiastic user I've probably said more than I am
entitled to, so I'll disappear for now...!!
Cheers!
Mike
Mike Ford, Electronic Information Services Adviser,
Learning Support Services, Learning & Information Services,
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