On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 8:45 AM Derick Rethans <der...@php.net> wrote:
> Out of Banjamin's suggestion[1], I've updated the Shorter Attribute > Syntax Change RFC to reflect that process: > > https://wiki.php.net/rfc/shorter_attribute_syntax_change > > Patches and comments welcome. Hi Derick, I don't agree with the main argument put forward in this RFC: > The main concern is that @@ has no ending symbol and it's > inconsistent with the language that it would be the only > declaration or statement in the whole language that has no ending > termination symbol. Attributes are not a standalone statement or declaration; they are metadata *on* a declaration. They cannot stand alone, but always modify the following declaration, just as public and static modify a method, or a type declaration modifies a parameter or property. Modifying declarations (e.g. for visibility and type) do not have an ending symbol. For example, we don't write something like: [public] function foo([int] $bar) {} With the @@ syntax attributes a treated consistently with type and visibility declarations: @@Jit public function foo(@@Deprecated int $bar) {} So there is nothing inconsistent about not having a termination symbol - this is in harmony with visibility and type declarations in PHP, as well as the attribute syntax used by a majority of C family languages. [1] When it comes to supporting attribute grouping, I actually consider this a downside of the #[], @[], and <<>> syntaxes. It complicates the internal implementation, and makes it so developers have to choose between two different syntaxes when adding more than one attribute. In real-world use cases the @@ syntax is just as or even more concise without the extra parser/compiler complexity: #[Attr1, Attr2] # 15 chars @@Attr1 @@Attr2 # 15 chars # 4 lines, 53 chars not counting whitespace @[ AttrWithParam("foobar"), SomeOtherAttr("fizzbuzz"), ] # 2 lines, 52 chars @@AttrWithParam("foobar") @@SomeOtherAttr("fizzbuzz") I agree that we want the best syntax, not necessarily the best **looking** syntax. I still believe that the @@ syntax offers the best balance here. It's familiar, concise without additional complexity, and doesn't break useful syntax the way @[] and #[] do. Kind regards, Theodore [1]: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/shorter_attribute_syntax#comparison_to_other_languages -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: https://www.php.net/unsub.php
