> You did't answer my question. Why? I am def. a fan of this idea. I'd love to see internally a set of Java-style objects representing the basic types in PHP.
As for why I have two reasons: Although PHP is not a strongly-typed language and never will be, with the introduction of type-hinting I feel that having a standard set of objects representing the fundamental types in PHP will allow developers of libraries to enforce the proper restrictions if they desire on the types which end up in their functions. This further degree of control over the architecture in a PHP class makes an architecture tighter and easier to manage with growth. More importantly than the concept of type-hinting, the lack of typing information is holding PHP back signifcantly in the realm of Web Services. Although for PHP applications as a whole typing has proven itself largely unnecessary, without it making PHP a viable and "simple" language for the creation of web services isn't feasible. How am I to create a WSDL document from a class I would like to expose as a web service? Do you honestly expect me to hand-write a WSDL document for my object and maintain that WSDL alongside code changes manually? WSDL documents were designed to be generated automatically by the architecture exposing the web service, and without any notion of typing in PHP at all there is no viable way to really do this. Also let me point out that I am *not* suggesting that PHP become a typed language. I am merely am suggesting that the ability for me to enforce structure on my objects does indeed have a real benefit without breaking backward compatibility or otherwise compromising the spirit of PHP. John -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
