"James Titcumb" wrote in message
news:CAKnqCEZMh-P8XmAeQtdPnw4ZaZGb4=wmm_9qyzphtupuwax...@mail.gmail.com...
need to have their competence, professionalism, and intelligence
questioned.
Tony, making a statement like this is unprofessional in itself. You've
already been asked to put emotions aside and discuss this topic on the
technical merit,
There is no technical reason why "var" should be removed. Is there a
security issue? No. Is there a performance issue? No. It is just a matter of
one small group of people trying to impose their personal preferences on the
rest of the PHP community.
there's no need to question people's competence,
professionalism, and intelligence.
It is perfectly legitimate to question the competence, professionalism, and
intelligence of any individual (or group) who seeks to break BC for NO GOOD
REASON other than personal preference.
Please - can we all discuss this in a nice way, without insults,
questioning intelligence, attacks, etc.
Anyone who does not like the way that PHP works should be told to switch to
a language that they DO like. The millions of developers who have been
using the language for the past decade or so and who have made PHP the #1
language for the internet DO NOT LIKE their language being broken.
At risk of fighting fire with fire, the same could be said to you - if you
don't like the language evolving and changing switch to a language whose
proposed modifications doesn't offend you so greatly...
I don't mind a language that evolves with the addition of new features
provided that I am not forced to use them. What I, and huge numbers of other
developers, *DO* mind is to have code which worked perfectly with the
previous version suddenly break with the new version FOR NO GOOD REASON.
It's a trivial task to replace `var` with `public`, and if I had any voting
karma, I'd vote +1 to remove `var`, based on the fact the intent of
`public` is much clearer than `var`. If the change is well documented (and
things like this usually are in my experience of PHP), then I don't see an
issue. No-one will force anyone to upgrade to PHP 8 or 9 (whenever this
change would be targeted for), you could happily continue using PHP 4 if
you like, as others have pointed out.
I am NOT still using PHP 4. I do, however, have a large amount of code that
was written for PHP 4 which has run perfectly well through all versions of
PHP 5 up to the latest 5.6 version. Like most developers in the real world I
expect valid code that runs in version X to still run in version X+1. The
only reason to change existing code would be to take advantage of a new
feature. Being forced to change code because some inconsiderate and
self-centered group of individuals has unilaterally decided that a perfectly
valid function or feature is no longer fashionable is something that makes
me very angry because I have to spend valuable amounts of my time to do
something which should not be necessary.
Language developers who are incapable of introducing new features without
breaking old ones do not deserve to be regarded as either professional,
competent or intelligent.
"Improving" the language should NOT involve rewriting it to conform to
today's fashion or fad. Introducing BC breaks for NO GOOD REASON should be
outlawed.
If a language cannot offer stability and longevity then organisations are
going to think twice before investing large amounts of manpower in using it
to write applications which are expected to last 10, 15 or even 20 years.
Saying that I don't actually have to upgrade is a stupid remark to make. A
huge number of web applications are run on hosted servers, and those hosting
services like to keep up-to-date with the latest PHP version. They are only
prevented from doing so because their customers have applications that are
broken with the latest version. This is why it took such a long time for PHP
5 to be adopted. This is why there are significant numbers of hosts still
running 5.2 or 5.3. This is why I fully expect the take-up of PHP 7 to be
very slow. Take up would be much faster if only you un-clever not-first-rate
meddlers would stop breaking the language for NO GOOD REASON.
--
Tony Marston
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