Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
> Ad hominem ad infinitum... > Okay kids. You're both very big boys with reasons and arguments and you're both clearly the smartest. Now, how about we all respect that neither of you is going to convince the other. Any further bickering and name calling is just bickering and name calling. Let's pretend we're adults. -Sara -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 11:52:49AM +0100, Lester Caine wrote: > That sums it up nicely Alain ... > Now the question is actually ... do we stay in the dark ages of single > byte character sets or do we move to fully embrace a current well > established and extensively used standard. Unicode has perhaps shirked > on the matter of 'case-insensitive' so there is no clean solution to > that today. That should not prevent the switch to unicode and other > threads such as the csv routines are now highlighting additional 'edge > cases' where unicode needs addressing, or kicking into the long grass of > extensions of mbstring? Maintaining 'case-insensitive' for single byte > character sets is an option, but then one needs to stay with that for > the whole code functionality? Allowing multibyte constant names with the > current limited sub-set of case conversion is just not sensible, but in > the absence of a clean unicode case folding/conversion which is the > sensible next step? We also need to think about how our decisions here affect how PHP is used; in particular robustness, correctness, ... of code that people write. I believe that one attribute of the mind of a good programmer is precision/exactness - eschewing sloppyness. Thus if a function is written DoSomething() then it should be spelled that way, not doSomething(), etc. Also PHP programmers are likely to write Javascript - which is case sensitive. I have also seen problems where someone has developed code using Microsoft SQL, they are then asked to port it to a case sensitive database, eg MySQL**. Or an application written on a case insensitive file system (Eg MS Windows) and then try to deploy it on Linux: only to have includes & fopens fail because they have been inconsistent in how they wrote file names. [[ I do not want to get into a discussion about the rights/wrongs of case (in)sensitive file names - we must just accept that as part of the world that we live in. ]] So encouraging the ''names are case sensitive'' meme is, IMHO, good. Then look at the internals of the PHP engine. Case insensitively adds complexity (== places for bugs to lurk) and makes it slower - name lookup happens a lot, it is not just a once off (& off line) compilation process. Some of us work hard to make the PHP engine 0.5% faster - so why make it slower with something that we can easily avoid ? Yes: case insensitivity is nice, I have that option set in my program editor search; but I am a programmer; to use PHP I have to put in a lot of effort to learn how to do things -- the same is true for any programming language. We are not talking about real end users such as my mother $$ - people who we try to make our systems usable for without having to train them. You ask what to do ? I suggest that case insensitiveness in single byte character sets (constant & function names) should be depricated, but enabled for one major release with an init flag -- just as was done for register_globals. That would give everyone a couple of years to tidy their code up. Then kill case insensitve anything in PHP [[ other than the likes of strcasecmp() ]]. **OK: MySQL has a switch to make table names, etc, case insensitive - but enabling that means a lot of testing to ensure that nothing else breaks. $$ I don't want to be rude about her, so maybe I ought to use a different group of clueless people, politicians perhaps ? :-) -- Alain Williams Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer. +44 (0) 787 668 0256 http://www.phcomp.co.uk/ Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php #include -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
On 24/09/17 11:05, Alain Williams wrote: >> we began to read and write. I have been working in the computer >> industry since the early 1970s on a variety of mainframe, mini- and >> micro-computers, and a variety of languages. and this was all case >> insensitive. It was only the invention of unix which threw a spanner >> in the works. > I remember those early days; things have changed. Back then case was not an > issue: > > * ASR33 Teletypes were upper case only > > * Punch cards machines were upper case only > > Yes: you could sometimes get lower case, but it was hard. > > Case conversion was easy: > > * ASCII - 7 bit characters, easy > > * EBCDIC - 8 bit characters, easy > > (OK: national variants of ASCII/EBCDIC, but still 7/8 bit). > > Some machines, eg CDC, had 6 bit character set - upper case only. > > These days we use Unicode, a 21 bit character set. Case conversion is hard > and, > as others have explained, can be ambiguous, non-reversible, ... That sums it up nicely Alain ... Now the question is actually ... do we stay in the dark ages of single byte character sets or do we move to fully embrace a current well established and extensively used standard. Unicode has perhaps shirked on the matter of 'case-insensitive' so there is no clean solution to that today. That should not prevent the switch to unicode and other threads such as the csv routines are now highlighting additional 'edge cases' where unicode needs addressing, or kicking into the long grass of extensions of mbstring? Maintaining 'case-insensitive' for single byte character sets is an option, but then one needs to stay with that for the whole code functionality? Allowing multibyte constant names with the current limited sub-set of case conversion is just not sensible, but in the absence of a clean unicode case folding/conversion which is the sensible next step? -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
Am 24.09.2017 um 11:36 schrieb Tony Marston: wrote in message news:caba6370-7531-7c51-3900-434611d00...@rhsoft.net... Am 22.09.2017 um 10:21 schrieb Tony Marston: wrote in message news:064eafcb-e42f-cfeb-76f1-e2c5aec0e...@rhsoft.net... Am 19.09.2017 um 11:24 schrieb Tony Marston: If the single character "ß" represents two "s" characters joined together, then the uppercase equivalent should also be a single character which looks like two "S" characters joined together. If it is not possible to write code which deals with these exceptions, then one alternative would be to remove these exceptions remove from where? from the reality? If the lowercase character "ß" causes so many problems because it has no proper equivalent in uppercase then it should be removed from the list of valid characters. Either that or provide a single uppercase character - which is what that wikipedia article you quoted says actually happened this year jesus christ the german language DID NOT have a uppercase ß in the real world until recently but had the lowercase ß virtually forever how do you imagine "removeed from the list of valid characters" in that case - frankly that paragraph above shows clearly that you should stop to argue about this topic at all Just because my opinion differs from yours does not give you the right to demand that I stop expressing it surely, in my opinion you don't understand the topic you are talking about and repeating the same questionable stuff again and again and as you are allowed to express your opinion i am allowed to express mine the way you argued about how code consistency don't matter says it all It is your definition of "consistency" that I object to. Consistency with what? Code that abandons case insensitivity "just to be consistent" is consistently bad because it removes the feature called "case insensitivity" that we humans have become used to since we began to read and write. I have been working in the computer industry since the early 1970s on a variety of mainframe, mini- and micro-computers, and a variety of languages. and this was all case insensitive. It was only the invention of unix which threw a spanner in the works. as you call everybody which demands that code all over a poject or company has to follow a common coding style "OCD sufferers" - but hey, the others are all ghost drivers and should turn around If you wish to enforce case sensitivity in projects which you control then go ahead. Just don't try to enforce it on everybody else. that thread was about the PHP core and NOT case-sensitive where you called people "OCD sufferers" - so don't play stupid games here when everybody can access the list archive or is knowing your attitude anyways - you have lost that game https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg91537.html https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg91562.html and frankly people like you arguing about code consistency are fired here from one the to the next because theri inability to write well cocumentend and readable quality code at all and they are instead coding timebombs it's one thing when you write your private crap but from the point you want your code used by somebody else you have to play with that rules -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 10:36:02AM +0100, Tony Marston wrote: > we began to read and write. I have been working in the computer > industry since the early 1970s on a variety of mainframe, mini- and > micro-computers, and a variety of languages. and this was all case > insensitive. It was only the invention of unix which threw a spanner > in the works. I remember those early days; things have changed. Back then case was not an issue: * ASR33 Teletypes were upper case only * Punch cards machines were upper case only Yes: you could sometimes get lower case, but it was hard. Case conversion was easy: * ASCII - 7 bit characters, easy * EBCDIC - 8 bit characters, easy (OK: national variants of ASCII/EBCDIC, but still 7/8 bit). Some machines, eg CDC, had 6 bit character set - upper case only. These days we use Unicode, a 21 bit character set. Case conversion is hard and, as others have explained, can be ambiguous, non-reversible, ... > If you wish to enforce case sensitivity in projects which you > control then go ahead. Just don't try to enforce it on everybody > else. May I suggest that you create your own fork of PHP and leave the rest of us alone. -- Alain Williams Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer. +44 (0) 787 668 0256 http://www.phcomp.co.uk/ Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php #include -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
wrote in message news:caba6370-7531-7c51-3900-434611d00...@rhsoft.net... Am 22.09.2017 um 10:21 schrieb Tony Marston: wrote in message news:064eafcb-e42f-cfeb-76f1-e2c5aec0e...@rhsoft.net... Am 19.09.2017 um 11:24 schrieb Tony Marston: If the single character "ß" represents two "s" characters joined together, then the uppercase equivalent should also be a single character which looks like two "S" characters joined together. If it is not possible to write code which deals with these exceptions, then one alternative would be to remove these exceptions remove from where? from the reality? If the lowercase character "ß" causes so many problems because it has no proper equivalent in uppercase then it should be removed from the list of valid characters. Either that or provide a single uppercase character - which is what that wikipedia article you quoted says actually happened this year jesus christ the german language DID NOT have a uppercase ß in the real world until recently but had the lowercase ß virtually forever how do you imagine "removeed from the list of valid characters" in that case - frankly that paragraph above shows clearly that you should stop to argue about this topic at all Just because my opinion differs from yours does not give you the right to demand that I stop expressing it surely, in my opinion you don't understand the topic you are talking about and repeating the same questionable stuff again and again and as you are allowed to express your opinion i am allowed to express mine the way you argued about how code consistency don't matter says it all It is your definition of "consistency" that I object to. Consistency with what? Code that abandons case insensitivity "just to be consistent" is consistently bad because it removes the feature called "case insensitivity" that we humans have become used to since we began to read and write. I have been working in the computer industry since the early 1970s on a variety of mainframe, mini- and micro-computers, and a variety of languages. and this was all case insensitive. It was only the invention of unix which threw a spanner in the works. as you call everybody which demands that code all over a poject or company has to follow a common coding style "OCD sufferers" - but hey, the others are all ghost drivers and should turn around If you wish to enforce case sensitivity in projects which you control then go ahead. Just don't try to enforce it on everybody else. -- Tony Marston -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
