On 05 November 2003 15:57, Ilia Alshanetsky contributed these pearls of wisdom:
> On November 5, 2003 10:34 am, Christian Schneider wrote: >> PHP is a mix of C, Perl and other styles anyway, why deny it? >> It's strength is that it's a pragmatic and simple language >> but that doesn't mean that nothing should be changed ever. > > PHP strength (IMHO) is it's simple and clear syntax, which > allows people who > come from background in other programming languages can > quickly recognize and > get used to. Creating confusing alternate syntaxes will bring > us ever closer > to Perl 6 where there are dozens of way to do the same thing. > The end results > in a confusing and hard to read/write language that all but > the most dedicated of users refuse to use. Yes, I agree with this, but I also think that a modicum of alternatives in a few strategically chosen places also makes a language easier to use for people coming from different backgrounds and with different style prejudices -- or even just with differently-built brains! A prime example of this is the "alternative structure syntax" -- as a confirmed and long-time hater of the curly-brackets-for-everything style (as a result of many years of using it in B, c, JavaScript and others), I was overjoyed to discover the alternative :-syntax in PHP and use it exclusively in all my scripts. Contrariwise, there are some features in (and not in!) PHP that I think are pretty silly, but some of its prime maintainers defend to the death -- well, that's their opinion and I would defend to the death their right to have it, whilst nevertheless continuing to disagree with them. >> I don't want to break existing programs. And I don't care >> about range() (or even list() too much for that matter), I >> just recognize the fact the I'm using a lot of array() and it >> is both unnecessarily hard to write _and_ read. > > That's bull, 5 characters is hard to write? If anything those > 5 characters make it absolutely clear to ANYONE that the data > is an array > and not an > object or a string or some other type. When I first saw the > syntax is took me > a few seconds to realize what it does and the problem would > only be compounded when the code is found within an > pre-existing > complex script. Well, my view on that is the exact contrary -- I find the 5 letters in question and their associated parentheses easy to lose in the surrounding and very similar code, whereas the [] syntax both stands out much better against surrounding noise and is, for me, more intuitive. I think there's room for both -- I and all the other +1s would no doubt enthusiastically switch over wholesale to [], whilst you and the other -1s would stick with array(). I would have no problem with that, and to me it would be an advantage of the language that it supports such choice. Cheers! Mike -- Mike Ford, Electronic Information Services Adviser, Learning Support Services, Learning & Information Services, JG125, James Graham Building, Leeds Metropolitan University, Beckett Park, LEEDS, LS6 3QS, United Kingdom Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +44 113 283 2600 extn 4730 Fax: +44 113 283 3211 -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
