On 02/03/2013 08:51 PM, Matt Wilson wrote:
Hello all. I'd like to start by saying that I am by no means an expert on the
subject at hand, and my knowledge is limited to pretty much basic C/C++. I have
done little more than patch and write ad hoc extensions for PHP in the past.
I'm not looking to criticize so much, as I'm just interested in an honest
discussion, for my own sake and understanding.
Many years ago I was on this internals list lamenting that PHP lacked
namespaces. I was passionate in my conviction that it couldn't be a true
language if it lacked them. But it wasn't until they were finally being
considered that I realized the one weakness in PHP that prevented a proper
namespace system. The autoload problem. Since PHP lacks an inherent style of
code importation, it is a decision largely left up to the developer. This of
course causes an order of precedence problem.
Now, I won't lie, some of my beef with namespaces as they stand is the \. What
can I say, I like a certain feng shui in my code. I understand the technical
limitations (or at least think I do) and the problem of ambiguity with other
operators, however I feel more effort might have been made.
If I were to pull some examples out of my ass, and feel free to rebuke me if
I'm missing something obvious,
[namespace foo.bar]
new [foo.bar.SomeClass]()
Would that be so hard to distinguish in the parser? If it is, I'd be grateful
to know why.
Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't, I don't know. But that ship
sailed a long time ago and it cannot be changed now without breaking a
few million lines of code. Please let that issue die.
Touching back on what I mentioned earlier about PHP not having an inherent way
to load files, and in daily use it's somewhat arbitrary. I share the philosophy
that the programmer should tell the code what to do, and not the other way
around; however, I think some enforced structure can be good. This is something
of a wet dream of mine and one I highly doubt will come true, but to get rid of
__autoload (or at least supplant it with a default loader) would be a dream. I
think it's something that PHP needs, to complete some one of advances its made
in recent years.
Thanks,
Matt
"The autoload problem" has already been solved by PSR-0. If you're not
using it yet, you should. All the cool kids are.
http://www.php-fig.org/
If you're using Composer to manage dependencies, it includes a fully
capable PSR-0 autoloader that "just works", as well as a classmap-based
option. If you're not using it yet, you should. All the cool kids are.
http://getcomposer.org/
--Larry Garfield
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