[PHP-DEV] Native decimal scalar support and object types in BcMath - do we want both?

[Barney Laurance]

Hello,

There are currently two proposals being discussed - /native decimal 
scalar type support/ and /Support object type in BCMath/

I've been getting involved in the discussion for the BCMath proposal, 
but not paying as much attention to the native decimal thread.

But these seem like very similar things, so I'm wondering whether or not 
it makes sense to do both at once. They both seem like ways to represent 
and calculate with arbitrary precision decimal numbers.

I'm not sure if they have distinct use cases. Are there some tasks where 
people would likely prefer one, and different tasks where they would 
prefer the other? Or should PHP internals choose just one of these 
options instead of potentially releasing both? It doesn't seem like a 
good idea to have two directly competing features for the same use case 
in one PHP release, unless there's a reason to favor each one in a 
different situation.

Best wishes,

Barney