At 09:37 15/09/2010, Christian Kaps wrote:
On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 23:09:02 -0700, Stas Malyshev
<smalys...@sugarcrm.com> wrote:
> Whatever syntax it is, it is definitely new.
Yes, but this should not be an argument against it. So every new
feature can have new syntax or should PHP freeze on the current state!?
I can't honestly understand why developer shouldn't understand the new
syntax. These developers which are familiar with annotations, I think
have no problem. This users which are new to annotations must learn the
new syntax like any other new syntax too. Where is the problem?
Christian,
Introducing large amounts of new syntax is by itself a very strong
negative when weighing the pros and cons of a new proposed
feature. Does it mean that 'every new feature that has new syntax'
should not be considered? No - but it certainly means that features
introducing new syntax, especially large amounts of it, should have
extremely compelling advantages and cater to a very large
audience. If there's already another way of reaching the same goal,
even if it's not a perfect-fit but a good-enough fit, that is also a
strong argument against the introduction of a new syntax.
And I honestly don't think that syntax is the only issue here. It's
the introduction of yet another new entity, another concept into the
language. "How difficult can it be to understand?" - probably not
very, but every new concept introduced to the language makes it a bit
more difficult to understand, a bit less intuitive, a bit more
complex. There won't be a flashing red light warning us when we're
about to cross the line to making PHP 'too complicated'.
In terms of language-level features, I don't think it's bad at all if
PHP went into a mode that most of the other mature languages went
into - where syntax changes or introduction of new language level
features are pretty rare. Out of all of the mature languages out
there, I think PHP has by far the most new syntax-introducing
features per version, and personally I don't think that's a good
thing. Most of the new features should come from new extensions, new
libraries and frameworks - not syntax changes.
Zeev
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