Hi, I just wanted to ask what is the community's feeling on keeping the echo shortcut. I know short tags are kind of deprecated and I think it is the right call, however, I really really think the echo shortcut <?= should be kept regardless of plain short tags, which are kind of pointless. I've read the RFC regarding this and I think the second + third option are the only sane ones.
Regarding syntax, I do like <?:$var and would maybe also advocate for <%=$var or <% $var. I think another option could be a valid namespaced XML notation <php:var /> (which is still shorter than <?php echo $var?>), but maybe this later has bigger implications that I'm too stupid right now to realize (for better or worse). I'm personally still using them since the benefit and enjoyment of working them supersedes the worst case scenario, which is a global find & replace of <?= to <?php echo. I tell my coworkers to enjoy them while they still can, however this is a luxury that can be only had with custom development, not open-source projects due to the obvious problems with portability given that short_open_tags is now off by default. Best regards, David Vega
