> and here goes the problem, some people here understand the issue a bit > better than others and some people actually do the work because they can > and are being respected for - just by their experience... I understand the need to have the final decision made by the core developers. Designing by committee never works but I also find that it is generally hard to tell when someone does or does not have an understanding of the inner workings of whatever is being suggested and in many cases it also is not necessary.
Two good examples recently have been both scalar type hinting and array syntax discussions. Any PHP developer worth their salt can form a very worthy opinion on the benefits and disadvantages of both issues. When it comes to discussions about how exactly something is implemented into the core, that's naturally a discussion for those with an understanding of the internals. Then there is also the fact that even someone of the "experienced" developers on this list are not always capable of mature commentary. We witnessed this with the couple dozen "if you want Java, use Java" comments on the scalar type hinting thread. I much rather judge each comment and suggestion by the technical merits of exactly is being said and also draw a distinct difference between a technical argument and an opinion, BOTH which have their place in discussions about new features and changes. > Either way there is a clear functional difference. The old array style > syntax looks like a function call, or a contructor. The new one makes one > thing clear, you will get an array. E.g. this is clearly an opinion. As is mine that it honestly does not matter whether or not it looks like a function call. So do most the control structures; if(), for(), while(), which(), foreach(), etc. There is nothing wrong with that. In my opinion, it only makes it clear and easy to catch when you are reading code (particularly that which someone else wrote). Tomi Kaistila PHP Developer -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php