Arvids, I can only speak for myself of course, but you should never feel as though you're not welcome to express yourself here freely and openly. Frustration, anger, bickering, etc; so long as it's not ad spam or just completely off-topic, I personally think it's all fair game. Of course, I disagree with a number of your points and I'll get to that, but I just first wanted to put that out there. Like you, I've monitored the list (including Internals) for years but only recently started posting to it myself. And, like you, I would shudder at the thought of being censored or "kicked-out" for speaking my mind. So as much as I disagree with you, I hope you won't hesitate to speak your mind without reservation! If anyone tries to tell you that you can't, I'll have your back (for whatever that's worth lol).
Ok, now that that's out of the way.... I think you're operating under some fundamental misconceptions about this debate. Specifically, there are two in particular that I feel compelled to address (quoted text is paraphrasing): 1. "The people advocating strict type hinting are people who either abandoned PHP long ago or came to PHP from other languages. Those of us who are the pure, loyal PHP developers don't support this at all." I first dabbled in PHP about 12 years ago, back when .php3 files were still the norm. About 10 years ago (PHP 4) was when I really started doing everything in PHP. I've been using it ever since and it continues to be my favorite language, in no small part because of its inherent flexibility. That said, I also have experience in a number of other languages; this listserv shouldn't be used as my personal resume so I'll spare you the details lol. Sufficeth to say, I'd like to think I have a rather well-rounded background. But the overwhelming majority of the work I've done has always been in PHP (at least since 2000) and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I also know and have worked with many people who, like me, are die-hard PHP fans but also believe, like me, that there's still a lot of room for improvement. We can live in denial and deride everyone who criticizes our favorite code as crazy or stupid, but we're only hurting ourselves if we do that. So no, this isn't an "us vs. them" situation. We're all in this together. We all have unique backgrounds, each of which enriches the whole by offering a different perspective. I don't believe that's a bad thing. I've criticized veteran programmers for looking down their noses at hard-core PHP developers on numerous occasions (and I'm often in the minority for doing so). But while their attitudes and conclusions may be wrong, they do reference some valid points. Likewise, you've seen me in this very thread criticizing a PHP developer for looking down his nose at people with different perspectives. Some rivalry can be healthy, but I think there's a lot of unhealthy derision on both sides that just makes it more difficult for us to have these important conversations. I'm a veteran PHP developer and proud of it, just as you are. And the more I think about it and hear all the arguments, the more I'm convinced that the introduction of optional strict typing into PHP 6 is the right way to go. 2. "Strict type hinting would eliminate PHP's flexibility and take away its unique simplicity." I respectfully disagree. Again, let me remind you that we are *not* talking about *converting *PHP to strict type hinting. Instead, we're merely talking about allowing PHP developers to *choose* whether or not to make a given function use dynamic or strict type hinting. The default behavior will remain dynamic, just as it is now. But there are situations where strict type hinting, even in a PHP script, would make more sense. There are many PHP developers, myself among them, who see considerable benefit in being able to make a function more condensed and streamlined without having to waste so much time on sanity checks that could instead be handled at a lower level in the core. This would not make PHP any less simple. On the contrary, we would be making it *more* accessible to people who come from different backgrounds. Under the right circumstances, strict type hinting would actually make PHP more simple, not less. This would not be an abandonment of KISS. I would never have even considered supporting it if it was. This idea produces a lot of anxiety among some veteran PHP developers. That's understandable. After all, if you've generally avoided dealing with languages that use strict typing, the thought of PHP supporting it could seem very intimidating. But remember, this is something that would be an option, at the discretion of the developer (i.e. you). You would be the one choosing whether or not to use it in any of your functions, just as you are the one who chooses whether to structure your code using OO classes or stick to traditional procedural code. OO concepts can also be very intimidating to someone who's accustomed to procedural languages. But PHP decided to bridge that gap, and we all survived. Just as it will survive by one again bridging an accessibility gap. There are other important things to work on, but we've always been able to walk and chew gum at the same time before. PHP 6 won't be happening anytime soon anyway, so I think it might be good if we all just took a deep breath and relax for a moment. Now is a good time to be having this conversation. I don't think we should punt it any further and I will try to push back against that reflex at least a little bit. But either way, this issue isn't going to go away; the fact that it still hasn't gone away I think proves that well enough. I don't think anybody is crazy as far as this debate goes. Both sides have valid points that need to be addressed with thought and care. But dismissing it out of hand or simply ignoring it hasn't worked because people are still asking for it, so I will be pushing back against that this time and advocate for a continued, ongoing dialogue on this until a true consensus can finally be reached. Avoiding it isn't the answer IMHO. --Kris On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 8:11 PM, Arvids Godjuks <arvids.godj...@gmail.com>wrote: > Kris Craig > > I usually just read the list, sometimes add if I have something to say and > I had voiced my opinion on typehinting before. And you know, just from the > stand of a userland developer who has 7-8 years of experience and devoting > myself to the excelence at PHP, i see this discussion about adding strict > typehinting to PHP as ridicilous. I cannot express my thrustration, because > i would probably be kicked out of the list permanently. > The problem is that those, who are actually advocating for this, come from > all sorts of languages (or have moved to them some time ago) and now what > to "make php better". Sorry folks, but I have picked up a script language > not because it has strict type hinting, but actually because it does not > have it. And because in web we are working with text. Almost any data we > get is text and in critical places we just check that data we have is > actually a number and not a random string. Or is an object of certain type. > Or is an array. Or a valid string. And we let the PHP to handle routine > conversions. And it's good because there can be tons of them per single > script call. String to number and vice-verse conversions are all over the > place in almost any script. They are so common, that if you would add > strict typehinting - you would probably need a type conversion on every > function/method call. > > PHP had (and i have to believe it still has, but people started to really > forget it) a principle called KISS. And strict typehinting is NOT simple. > It really complicates things, a lot. And really, in a scripting language?! > Are people going nuts because of 2012? Has to be, because i just can't > explain what is happening with the typehinting rfc discussions for the last > year. > The way i see it, there is two types of people. The PHP crowd, that says > that optional weak type hinting could be helpfull and strict-type hinting > crowd witch has come to PHP from different languages or had moved from PHP > to them, but ocasionaly returns to it. > > What i thing is that core devs should really look at what the php is, on > what principles it is built and based. Remember what it was built for and > why it's popular. And that if you handle it correctly - it's a powerful > tool, and works great. And that we do not need other python, perl or ruby. > PHP always had it's own way and it should. My vote is for optional weak > typehinting that will do what the most want - to write a more solid library > code with less annoing checks and does not put additional restraints on the > userland code. Because if you give people something like strict typing - it > just will get abused to such extreme by some people, that it will create > more negative than good in the long run. > > PHP is not the easiest language out there. Yes, it's easy to start with, > but it's not that easy to master and strike the right balance between > simplicity and complexity. And people tend to go overcomplex forgetting the > KISS. I'd rather see the PDO getting a major kick, or dumped allready and > work gone into db drivers and unicode support improvement - these are far > more important than strict type hinting. >
