Re: short_open_tag

Kristian Koehntopp wrote:

On Tuesday 22 October 2002 08:13, Terence Kearns wrote:

I would hate to see PHP's simple but awsome application producing capability essentially *crippled* (or at least stifled) when XML becomes the norm because inter-application functionality (such as SOAP for only *one* example) is essential as the web landscape evolves.

I can see how short_open_tag enabled makes life harder than it should be for the XML-using PHP-developer. I fail to see how this can happen in a situation where this developer has no control over the appropriate php.ini setting, though. So basically, what PHP does now is unclean, hacky and as usuall correct, enabling short_open_tag for the great unwashed masses. It's been called obsolete, deprecated, non-compliant and plain bad. Obviously only unwashed masses are dumb enough to use that. Ops... I use it... Time for me to get washed up or what? Why do people keep saying it's bad when it isn't? If it's the right tool for my jb, but not yours, and there is no easy way to make mine work for you, then chances are you might want to look for a different tool and *not* try to change mine. PHP is not perfect for everything.

On a different note. I was not participating in the discussion at all partly because I didn't want to contribute to the volume of the thread. Can we agree not to respond to emails like the short tags ones? Expect for maybe a couple people saying "it's been discussed, not going to happen. see archive for details, do not ask the list for details". Lack of any other response will lighten the thread, and will reduce the amount of fuel to feed the fire. Maybe saying the same thing twice or thrice will kill the issue in 10 emails or less. Or does this not work on a large list and I am coming up with a non-existent solution to a problem? Lastly, Kristian, I did not mean to say anything bad, or even disagree with your email. It's just that your 'unwashed masses' caught my eye :) Apparently, I am one of the multitude, the unwashed one... :)

Those that strive for lean and clean XML-solutions always can flip the switch, or if they are of the brighter variety, use a more templatey generation schema that does not mix XML and PHP in the first place (PEAR::XML_Transformer comes to mind, if you do not like XSLT). Kristian