Lars Torben Wilson wrote:
Lars Torben Wilson wrote:
Daniel Convissor wrote:
Hi Lars:
In an earlier draft I had words to this effect, but it just got to
be unwieldy, since it felt like if I explained that some people
call class variables "properties", I should explain that others
call them "members" or "member variables" or "attributes" or
what-have-you. I'll work on it more. :)
When re-writing the Overloading section, it seemed "members" was the
predominant word used already in the docs. It will be good to use a
clear and consistent term througout the documentation. Considering
the existing usage and the fact that "variables" already has a
separate meaning for something else, I hope you'll consider using the
word "members" here instead of "variables." Then explain that there
are many other things people call them (and that they particularly
hate being called "late for dinner").
Thanks,
--Dan
:)
Yes, this was along the lines of what I was planning to do. I haven't
done a statistical analysis, but (as you noted) it seems to me that
the preference already in the docs is to use 'member' as opposed to,
say, 'property' or 'attribute'. I'll dig into some changes when I get
home from work.
Cheers,
Torben
OK, I know I'm following up my own post, but I just wanted to put this
out there: on the drive home, I realized what was bugging me about the
use of the term "member" in this context: in typical OOP terminology, a
method is also a member, as is a class constant. So while using the term
"member" here might make things more consistent with some existing PHP
documentation, my feeling is that the docs would overall be better
served by fixing the existing usages to be more in line with common OOP
terminology.
Personally I like "property" (as opposed to, say, "attribute" or
"field") but it's not a super-strong preference. However, while
"variable" certainly isn't anything to carry forward, I don't feel
comfortable using "member" either. Sorry about that--it just offends my
sense of pedantry. ;)
Anybody have any thoughts on this? I have no problem with updating the
rest of the oop5 docs to match, no matter the outcome of our discussion.
Regards,
Torben
And, just to follow up to myself *again* (sigh, I know, I know),
"property" would fit much better with the existing Zend engine internal
naming structure, as well as match existing function names such as
property_exists() and the names of various functions in the Object
Aggregation extension.
The more I look into it, the more it seems like Overloading section (and
any other part of the manual which refers to properties as "members")
needs to be corrected, and this usage normalized throughout the
documentation. In much of the documentation, in fact, it seems that the
only things which would need to be corrected would be the links to the
Overloading section and some more recent docs, as it looks like the oop5
extension may have been where this usage of "member" to mean "property"
may have arisen. In many other parts of the documentation, "property" is
the term of choice.
If we decide to indeed go this route (Philip, any thoughts on this?), I
have already made the changes in most places in my checkout of the doc
tree and can commit quite readily.
Oddly, I wasn't expecting this thread to go in this direction. :)
Torben
