On Sep 19, 2015 15:50, "Rowan Collins" <rowan.coll...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 19 September 2015 10:48:17 BST, Lester Caine <les...@lsces.co.uk> wrote: > >I get that a lot of people think that the only way forward with PHP is > >fully typed, strict checking and blocking anything that may be deemed > >to > >be risky. However PHP7 has not yet dropped the simple object-less style > >of programming that it originally developed from. That is why tidying > >up > >a simple procedural style of working still has a place. The debate on > >'exists()' or to give it a tidier title 'variable_exists()' is more > >about just how much of a procedural style of programming remains in PHP > >in the future. > > I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not sure "procedural" is the right keyword here. I know of no other language, however procedural, that allows easy examination of the local symbol table to see if a variable exists. Nor do most procedural languages allow "variable variables" and functionality like extract() and compact(). However, I take the point that, whatever name we give it, this is a style of coding PHP goes some way to supporting, and there's no fundamental reason not to expand that support.
Not to forget that something like variable_exists() would have to be a language-level statement to avoid notices being raised. So while having a more consistent syntax would be kinda sweet, we'd be stuck with maintaining BC forever, and there will always be those "it's not as simple as that" cases. I think there are much better uses of the community's time. - Stig
