The first time I saw the backtick operator in code, I thought it must be some kind of ancient alternative syntax for string literals. (and no, I did not know that these are called "backticks")
When I learned that code "quoted" in this way is immediately executed as shell commands, this seemed like a completely insane and reckless language design. In most projects, executing shell commands should be something rare, and the few cases where it happens should be visible and searchable. Perhaps a legitimate use case would be a file that is essentially a shell script with some PHP sprinkled in. But overall I think we should rather get rid of this feature. On Sat, 5 Oct 2019 at 22:02, Lynn <kja...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi! > > > > > This is true, if you know they are called a backtick. It's not a > > > > I think it's reasonable to expect some minimal level of knowledge from > > the user. We're not targeting infants in the kindergarten here. So while > > we aim to not present too many obstacles to the novice user, we can > > reasonably expect from them at least basic middle-school level knowledge > > and abilities - and occasional read of the documentation never killed > > anybody either. > > > > Hi, > > I didn't know the name of this character until several years after I > started PHP, and I only found out because a colleague pointed it out to me. > I don't think it's a good idea to assume people know the name of this > operator or known how to find it easily. Googling is a skill on its own > that not everyone masters, as much as I'd like to see this in our field. I > also don't see how school knowledge is important here, especially as I went > to school and I did not learn about it there. Besides of this, there are > also keyboard( layout)s that don't have a backtick character present. > > Regards, > Lynn van der Berg -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
