Guys, this argument has been killed many times. Please stop. The reasons
it won't change:
1. <?php is the SGML-compliant PI tag-style that is supposed to play
nice with other technologies. <?php= would completely break that as
the SGML spec (and the XML spec) says to use <?php<whitespace> so it
would have to be <?php =$foo?> which is even uglier and would cause a
bit of trouble at the parser level.
2. The only reason for using <?php =$foo?> is to save a few keystrokes.
We have short_tags and asp_tags for example that reason. These are
the non-compliant tag style that people have been taught are ok for
local code, but shouldn't be used for distributed code. Therefore
if you really do want to save keystrokes, which I am all for, use
<?=$foo?> or <%=$foo%> and you are happy. If you ever need to
distribute your code, write a 30-second sed script that changes these
to <?php echo $foo?> for you. That way local hacks/shortcuts stay
local, but the distributed code is proper and readable and people
won't be wondering what the heck this = thing is.
3. The whole concept of =$var sucks. Magic tokens with no visible meaning
is against the spirit of PHP. Yes, it has snuck in due to popular
demand, but I see no reason to help the disease spread any further and
give people precedence for then wanting stuff like ~$foo:$bar which
might echo $foo if it is non-empty, $bar otherwise. A useful operation
to be sure, but we don't want a language that looks like
<?php~SID:"new user"?> blah blah <?php=$user_name?>
It goes back to the old concept of keeping things readable. Figuring
out what = and ~ do in this particular context is difficult. You can't
just look them up in the index of a PHP book because first of all they
are single-character common tokens, but worse, they are modal tokens.
-Rasmus
On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Sam Liddicott wrote:
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brinkman, Theodore
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: 26 April 2002 14:55
> > To: 'PHP Developers Mailing List'
> > Subject: RE: [PHP-DEV] <?= and <%= both work, why not <?php=
> >
> >
> > Sure, and its only an extra 4 character, really. But that's
> > not the issue
> > at hand. The issue at hand is that the inconsistency of
> > supporting <?= and
> > <%= but not <?php= encourages quite a few people to use the
> > 'optional' short
> > form tags, meaning that their code isn't portable.
>
> I guy here who till recently poo-poo'd asp tags is now using them because
> <%=$VAR;%> is emminently more readable than the alternative.
>
> > For each person who says <?php= $variable ?> is hard to read
> > at least one
> > other person says they find <?php echo $variable ?> harder to read. I
> > personally find the first easier to read when it is embedded
> > in the middle
> > of a long line of HTML (like an input tag for example).
>
> Yep.
>
> > What possible harm comes from improving the internal
> > consistency of the
> > language? Why is a two-line patch that would completely remove an
> > inconsistency so bitterly fought against?
>
> To emphasise; people here are adopting bad-old short tags in order to keep
> readability of code. It makes it easy to see the code is passive, echoing
> only.
>
> Sam
>
>
>
>
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