The PHP 7 Revolution: Return Types and Removed Artifacts

[tony_marston404]

@swader

tony_marston404:
Are you aware for example that shortly after PHP 5 came out some over-eager core developer decided to remove support for the “var” keyword with the justification that developers should be using “public/private/protected” instead? He was quickly shot down as this was considered to be too much of a BC break for too little benefit to anybody.

I was not,

Then take a look at http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.changelog.php which show that this faux pas was fixed in version 5.1.3

@swader

I believe the argument here is that Tony likes to keep the PHP version up to date, but not the code. In other words, the effort it takes to modernize the code to best practices as recommended by the internals group is not worth it, while the effort of upgrading to a new version of PHP (arguably taking longer), is.

Correct. I want to ensure that I am up-to-date with all bug fixes, but I do not see why I should be forced to refactor my code for an unnecessary and frivolous break in BC. If it is a choice between a single core developer doing an hour’s work and 240 million website owners doing an hour’s work each then which would you describe as being the most cost effective?

@swader

I can sort of relate to this, to each his own after all, but it still seems like resistance for the sake of resistance.

Wrong. I am complaining about being forced to do some unnecessary refactoring because of a frivolous break in BC.

@swader

it would be a shame if all those stuck on horrid old code were abruptly left behind unable to upgrade versions just because of inertia.

Your use of the word “horrid old code” is entirely subjective and unnecessary. Code does not have to be “pretty”, it has to be “effective”. Ugly code which works is far better than pretty code which does not. I do not like having to refactor my code just because some junior programmer has taken it upon himself to redefine what “pretty” means.