On Wed, 9 Oct 2019 at 0:38 Mike Schinkel <m...@newclarity.net> wrote:
> ...it seems you have identified at least one way to seek compromise. Why > not move forward with this, in general? > > I did - quite a while ago - and I see no reason not to, except that the pro-strict/pro-let’s-break-things camp either ignores that proposal entirely, or calls it a fork (it’s a fork in precisely the same way that PHP is a spoon). Note that I don’t really view it as a compromise, which is why I wrote my reply to you the way that I did. Instead, I see it as a complete win/win for both camps. It’s radically different from thoroughly entertaining each and every proposal with the inevitable contentious discussion that would ensue - in the context of changing PHP and both forcing people to change how they work as well as break existing code - and come up with some technical middle ground between “we shouldn’t touch it” and “we must kill it”. > Said another way, why not discuss and debate BC breakage in abstract — and > any other contention topics — and then establish a set of principles that > the community can agree to use? > > I don’t know. The last time I tried to do it, someone pulled an overnight pseudo-RFC to stop the discussion, radically mischaracterizing the proposal, abusing a vote to shutdown discussion, and creating the fundamentally wrong impression that this is about the technical feasibility of achieving this - and not about whether we want to go down that route or not. I’m all for discussing it (the principle, not necessarily in the P++ form). I would create an RFC like that but AFAIK I have not developed enough clout > here thus far so it would have to be from someone already well respected. > > As I wrote a couple of weeks back, before we agree on the principle - that these contentious, breaking-for-no-new-reason proposals can’t be forced on everyone but we need to make it opt-in, I don’t think formalizing it into an RFC would help. I could be wrong, but I think we’re currently lacking in good will on the other camp, which appears to feel a lot more comfortable to just go on producing contentious proposals day in and day out, and live with whatever sticks. P.S. You argument against compromises ironically soundsvery similar to the > argument that leaving certain syntax in PHP encourages people to use it, > and thus write "bad" code. Do you not see the similarities? > In a nutshell, no, not really. Feel free to try to convince me otherwise off list - I’ll report back if convinced :) Zeev >
