A new idea on PHP6. View as Markdown

I'll start off by saying that I am, personally, a great fan of OO. Pure OO languages have always tickled me just right.

But I question the idea that making something pure OO makes it better. And in PHP, it wouldn't be a mere revamp of the OOP system like php5 did, it would fundamentally change the language. It wouldn't be PHP anymore. Also, it'd be slow. Very slow. There's no real way to keep PHP's model and go the route you're talking without turning the language into a vegetable.

And that's okay. Because PHP isn't a one-size-fits-all tool. It's a web language, and it excels at being a web language. Why can't we just keep it that way, and use the tool appropriate for the job at hand? I wish we could stop trying to make PHP everything to everyone and just accept that sometimes java is the answer. Or python. Or ruby. Or any other language or technology that fits.

Making PHP 100% OO won't make it better at web development. In fact, I'd argue it'd do the opposite, as a once simple language would now inherit not just the features that go with a pure OO language, but also the same considerations one has to make when dealing with such a language. Moreover, a change like this would result in one of two outcomes: PHP follows through with a solid, feature-complete OO language specification (unlikely) and thus loses the flexibility of being a dirty little dynamically typed language that cares little for enforcing type constraints, or, much more likely, we get a half assed solution because PHP wouldn't be PHP without that flexibility, and it's largely incompatible with a true OO architecture.

Just my $0.02

With PHP 6, lets start with a:
Pure
Object
Oriented
PHP

...idea, and extend it out, so we can have a:
Structured
Heuristic
Idealistic
Taxonomy

..so we reduce user confusion, and eliminate the vast majority of our
userbase, (thus cutting down on bug reports, of course) so we can
have a:
Heuristic
Accessible
Readable
Available
Helpful
...language advance.

(This is not meant as a serious post, but as a post to increase levity
on this list. Your mileage may vary. Cape does not enable the wearer
to fly.)

-Ronabop

I will also note that my phone cut off the part about this post not being serious.

I, however, have no sense of humor.

With PHP 6, lets start with a:
Pure
Object
Oriented
PHP

...idea, and extend it out, so we can have a:
Structured
Heuristic
Idealistic
Taxonomy

..so we reduce user confusion, and eliminate the vast majority of our
userbase, (thus cutting down on bug reports, of course) so we can
have a:
Heuristic
Accessible
Readable
Available
Helpful
...language advance.

(This is not meant as a serious post, but as a post to increase levity
on this list. Your mileage may vary. Cape does not enable the wearer
to fly.)

-Ronabop

Our syntax is very, very confusing for newbies. Also, procedural and OOP
programming is unnatural and unintuitive. We should use the natural LISP
braces syntax and make PHP functional, so it is much easier to write, e.g.:

((decl (main (echo (add (reverse (array (1 2 3))) (string ('h 'e 'l 'l 'o
'\ 'w 'o 'r 'l 'd '\n)))) (phpinfo))))

With PHP 6, lets start with a:
Pure
Object
Oriented
PHP

...idea, and extend it out, so we can have a:
Structured
Heuristic
Idealistic
Taxonomy

..so we reduce user confusion, and eliminate the vast majority of our
userbase, (thus cutting down on bug reports, of course) so we can
have a:
Heuristic
Accessible
Readable
Available
Helpful
...language advance.

(This is not meant as a serious post, but as a post to increase levity
on this list. Your mileage may vary. Cape does not enable the wearer
to fly.)

-Ronabop

With PHP 6, lets start with a:
Pure
Object
Oriented
PHP

OMG, did you seriously just recommend POOP? LOL, I'm gonna go die now.

-- Dante

D. Dante Lorenso
dante@lorenso.com
972-333-4139