On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 8:58 PM Christian Schneider <cschn...@cschneid.com>
wrote:
> Am 29.01.2022 um 20:03 schrieb Mark Randall <marand...@php.net>:
> > On 29/01/2022 16:33, Christian Schneider wrote:
> >> If a static analyzer manages to catch it at development time then that
> is a lot better.
> >
> > Of course it's better, but you wouldn't argue that a car doesn't need
> airbags because you've tested that the breaks work.
>
> To stay with your car analogy: A driving assistant system (especially when
> wrongly interpreted as auto-pilot) can lead drivers to not paying attention
> to the road any more. Which means even systems designed to help can have
> negative effects.
>
> > With runtime checking, the engine should always try to protect against
> the unexpected, irrespective of if other checking has already been
> performed by outside sources.
>
> I think we've been over this: I don't think the engine should force me to
> write too much unnecessary stuff just because I have to tell it I am sure I
> mean what I wrote. There is a balance between explicit declarations and
> conciseness, we just disagree where the sweet spot is.
>
To stay with the car analogy: Seatbelts were once considered unnecessary as
well.
Just because you know for sure you know you mean what you wrote, doesn't
mean everyone else knows. They have to read the code you didn't write to
know for sure.
On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 7:16 PM Christian Schneider <cschn...@cschneid.com>
wrote:
> Am 26.01.2022 um 18:37 schrieb Lynn <kja...@gmail.com>:
> > I don't understand how variable initializers are considered boilerplate
> and make it easier to read without.
>
> [off-list as I think this has been discussed before]
>
> Example:
>
> function count_words($words)
> {
> foreach ($words as $word)
> $counts[$word++];
>
> return (array)$counts;
> }
>
> vs.
>
> Function count_words($words)
> {
> $words = []; # <-- Boilerplate
> foreach ($words as $word)
> {
> $counts[$word] ??= 0; # <-- Currently worse boilerplate
> but beside your point
> $counts[$word++];
> }
>
> return $counts;
> }
>
> I find the first version easier to understand but I guess we'll have to
> agree to disagree here.
>
> Regards,
> - Chris
I would appreciate it if you keep the replies to the mailing list. Though
while I'm at it, your examples are why it's important that we have PHP to
let us know when things are broken.
You're not going to convince me that not initializing variables is a good
thing, I've had to fix way too much code where that kind of cowboy coding
was at fault. As a reader I cannot see if the lack of a variable
initialization is intentional, so I have to go through the history of the
file to verify this behavior, and then I add the initialization so the next
developer seeing this won't have to waste a lot of time by doing the same.
A huge amount of changes in PHP are based on what other languages do (or
sometimes rather don't). With the amount of the web that PHP powers, it's a
good thing that PHP grabs the good bits and improves itself. Ensuring that
variables are properly initialized is one of them, as it protects the
developers from making preventable mistakes without requiring external
tools.
