On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 11:23 AM Olle Härstedt <olleharst...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> 2021-03-25 16:02 GMT+01:00, Mike Schinkel <m...@newclarity.net>:
> >
> >
> >> On Mar 25, 2021, at 10:41 AM, Rowan Tommins <rowan.coll...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 25/03/2021 12:31, Nuno Maduro wrote:
> >>
> >>> The reason why we believe the vast majority of PHP Developers are going
> >>> to
> >>> appreciate this RFC is because multi-line short closures (aka
> >>> Auto-capturing multi-statement closures) *are more simple, shorter to
> >>> write, and prettier to read *— and the community love these changes as
> >>> proven on "property promotions", "one-line short closures", etc.
> >>
> >>
> >> My main point was that the RFC needs to spell out this argument, rather
> >> than taking it for granted that everyone agrees on "those situations
> where
> >> that is warranted".
> >>
> >> Most of the current text should be summarised in a "syntax choices"
> >> section somewhere near the end. I would like to see much more space
> >> devoted to:
> >>
> >> * Why we need this feature. What has changed since it was left out of
> the
> >> arrow functions RFC? What problems is it addressing? Why do you think it
> >> is the best approach to those problems?
> >> * The exact semantics proposed: How will the variables to be captured be
> >> determined? Will it distinguish variables which are written before
> they're
> >> read, and if so how is that defined? Can auto-capturing closures be
> >> nested, i.e. will "fn() { return fn() { echo $a; } }" capture $a from
> the
> >> outermost scope? And so on...
> >>
> >>
> >>> Besides, one advantage of this RFC is that it is consistent with the
> >>> current syntax of the language and with the short-functions RFC[2]. For
> >>> example, by proposing that "fn" keyword indicates a function will
> >>> auto-capture variables, by value.
> >>
> >>
> >> While it's a cute rationalisation, there's no intuitive reason why "fn"
> >> should have that meaning; we could pick any aspect of the current arrow
> >> function syntax and say "the 'fn' keyword means that".
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On the other hand "use (*)" has no usages / or current meaning in the
> >>> language.
> >>
> >>
> >> This is a straw man argument. I could equally say that "fn() { } has no
> >> usages or current meaning in the language" - of course it doesn't, we
> >> haven't added it yet!
> >>
> >> The "function use() {}" part of "function use(*) {}" has a
> >> well-established meaning, and "*" to mean "everything" is a notation
> >> developers are likely to be very familiar with.
> >>
> >> The two disadvantages I see with using "fn" as proposed are:
> >>
> >> * Because it's shorter, people will decide it's the "better" version,
> when
> >> they don't actually need any variable capture. An explicit syntax like
> >> "use(*)" instead makes this a deliberate choice.
> >
> > And yet adding " use (*)" makes the syntax longer, which goes against
> one of
> > the goals many people have for it: to be shorter.
>
> I don't understand why this is a target in the first place. Shorter
> does not mean more readable, and readable is more important than
> writable.
>
I'm a bit confused on why "shorter" is such an important requirement as
well. We aren't in a situation where memory is at a premium and we have to
take shortcuts to get our code to fit in the available storage. I also
assume that none of us are such slow typers that there is a material
difference between the options. On top of that, most IDEs worth anything
have autocomplete options that make it moot.
I agree that shorter definitely does not always mean more readable. If so,
we'd be taught to give all of our functions and variables single character
names instead of names that were descriptive.
I'm totally in favor of auto capture with the fn() syntax, but I think the
fact that its shorter is not the best argument to support it.
>
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--
Chase Peeler
chasepee...@gmail.com
