Perhaps it's time to revisit the idea of allowing variables to have their types locked down. The keywords needed are already reserved. So...
string $a = "hello"; int $b = 5; Once declared this way the variable's type won't change unless it gets unset. In normal mode PHP will coerce any assignment to the variable to the desired type. If declare strict types is on then assigning the wrong type to a variable would raise a type error. Note this would simplify one of the use cases of setters - insuring the class member is of a valid type. The idea of function overloading reminded me of this. I'd consider being able to do this sort of type lockdown to be prerequisite to having overloaded functions. Since this approach is entirely opt in I don't think it would make the language harder to learn.
