On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:48 PM, Fleshgrinder <p...@fleshgrinder.com> wrote:
> On 4/24/2016 1:00 PM, Zeev Suraski wrote: > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: Sebastian Bergmann [mailto:sebast...@php.net] > >> Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:14 PM > >> To: internals@lists.php.net > >> Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] PHP Attributes > >> > >> On 04/21/2016 11:13 PM, Dmitry Stogov wrote: > >>> I would like to present an RFC proposing support for native annotation. > >> > >> Dmitry, > >> > >> please use "annotation" as the name for this feature and not > "attribute". > >> > >> We already have attributes: it's what we use to store data in objects. > And > >> while some people call them "member variables" or "properties" the > correct > >> term for them (AFAIK) is "attribute". > > > > I don't think I've ever heard properties referred to as attributes in > the context of PHP. The PHP manual defines them and refers to them > throughout as 'properties'. > > > > (I'm not voicing an opinion on attributes vs. annotations; Just > pointing out that data storage inside objects isn't named attributes). > > > > Zeev > > > > The terminology here is pretty clear and you can just look it up, it has > nothing to do with PHP or Java or whatever. The main problem is simply > that people do not know the terminology and get mixed up. That is > usually okay in a casual discussion where each peer understands what the > other is referring to. However, we are dealing with language > specification here and need to be very exact or we fuck it up for the > users. > > `$x` is a property in the following example: > > class A { > $x; > } > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_%28programming%29 > > `private` is an attribute of property `$x` and an access modifier (not > visibility, because the property is still visible, e.g. via reflection, > and it only alters access to the property): > > class A { > private $x; > } > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_%28computing%29 > > Note that these things go further up in the terminology hierarchy to: > Field - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_%28computer_science%29 > Record - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_%28computer_science%29 > Data Structure - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure > > This is not the whole image yet, there are more things like (random order): > - functions > - methods > - members > - class variables > - static variables > - behavior > - data > - ... > > You will notice, if you read all Wikipedia articles and related > documents, that these terms are too often used interchangeable. This is, > as mentioned before, mainly the case because people to not care about > terminology in general. > > To sum it up, calling them attributes is outright wrong because not all > parts of a source code of a programming language has attributes. That is > why Sun chose the word annotation. Annotation means metadata that was > added to data. It does not say anything about the data itself and it > does not necessarily alter the data in any way, however, it can. This is > exactly what this feature is about. Since, an entity annotation does not > alter the data (in this case a class) itself but this additional > metadata may be used to configure other parts of the program. > > The same is true for a method that has been annotated with test. The > data is not altered at all but is helps other parts of the program to > configure specific data and behavior based on this additional metadata > that was added to the data. Execution of the same method without those > other parts that react on the metadata does not do anything and the > program will execute normally. > > TL;DR this feature *MUST* be called annotations (unless someone knows an > even better term) and the annotations *MAY* be used to add attributes to > properties but for many other things too. > The article *you* reference about attributes lists C# attributes as the *first* example. And defines an attribute as: "For clarity, attributes should more correctly be considered metadata <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata>. An attribute is frequently and generally a property of a property." HHVM uses the name attribute, for the same syntax that Dimitry proposes here. *MUST* is such a strong word in this context, this is not an 0 XOR 1 issue. > > -- > Richard "Fleshgrinder" Fussenegger > >
