On 30 April 2024 11:16:20 GMT-07:00, Arvids Godjuks <arvids.godj...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>I think setting some expectations in the proper context is warranted here.
>
>1. Would a native decimal type be good for the language? I would say we
>probably are not going to find many if any people who would be against it.
As I said earlier, I don't think that's the right question, because "adding a
native type" isn't a defined process. Better questions are: Should a decimal
type be always available? Does a decimal type need special features to maximise
performance? Should we have special syntax for a decimal type? What functions
should support a decimal type, or have versions which do?
>2. Is there a need for it? Well, the whole world of e-commerce, accounting
>and all kinds of business systems that deal with money in PHP world do not
>leave any room for doubt - https://packagist.org/?query=money . The use
>case is right there :)
That's a great example - would a decimal type make those libraries redundant?
Probably not - they provide currency and rounding facilities beyond basic
maths. Would those libraries benefit from an always-available, high-performance
native type? Certainly.
Would they benefit from it having strong integration into the syntax and
standard library of the language? Not really; there's a small amount of actual
code dealing with the values.
>4. Is it a lot of engine work?
Only if we go for the maximum ambition, highly integrated into the language.
> Is it worth it?
I'm actually not convinced.
>5. But BCMath/GMP/etc!!! Well, extensions are optional.
Extensions are only optional if we decide they are. ext/json used to be
optional, but now it's always-on.
> They are also not as fast and they deal with strings.
Not as fast as what? If someone wants to make an extension around a faster
library, they can. And only BCMath acts directly on strings; other libraries
use text input to create a value in memory - whether that's a PHP string or a
literal provided by the compiler doesn't make much difference.
I absolutely think there are use cases for decimal types and functions; but "I
want a faster implementation" and "I want to add a new fundamental type to the
language, affecting every corner of the engine" are very different things.
Regards,
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]
