On Thu, 1 Apr 2021 at 04:56, Benjamin Eberlei <kont...@beberlei.de> wrote:
> This RFC is using the declaration of the return type, to specify that it
> never returns. As such noreturn or never is a keyword a long the lines of
> public or final, but it is not a return type.
>
> I don't think the argument for potential optimizations in Opcache to
> eliminate dead code or allow IDEs to hint at dead code are valuable enough
> to justify this change.
>
By this argument "void" should also be an attribute – there's no reason to
hint a value that's not being returned.
You'd write functions like
[\Void]
function foo() { ... }
But we don't do that, because the wider programming language community has
agreed that "void" is a type, and at compile-time PHP's engine can ensure
that "void" functions do not return a value.
"Noreturn"/"never" is also recognised as a type by the wider programming
language community. It can be checked at both compile-time and run-time by
the engine, as detailed in the RFC. Indeed, _no other return type makes
sense in the context_.
The type definitely felt awkward when I first started using it in
docblocks, but after a while it started to make intuitive sense.
Best wishes,
Matt/Ondrej
