Re: P++: FAQ

I must admit that the first time I read Zeev’s email I got anxious... but it is frustrating that PHP has a WAY better runtime than Python and most other dynamic languages yet is falling out of fashion. It’s strange given how much better it actually runs (really being unbiased here). One reason is security perception (which is BS but perception matters) and the second is arguably some of the historic baggage which makes some folks feel PHP is hard to master without a manual (we have the best manual). So many times I have thought “is it time to just take an axe and simplify it and do a cleanup?”. I actually don’t think we lack many features but rather lots of stuff I would dump like references, array(), global namespace for functions(?), type juggling in areas where we should be stricter, etc... I actually think that having a p++ is risky but it is an opportunity. I think it’s mostly be an opportunity if we’d be careful about feature bloat and try and be really aggressive about removing things and cleaning up. We potentially would get the significant benefits of our runtime but with a cleaner language. Will non-PHP appreciate it? maybe, maybe not... I actually do think there’s value of a different brand just because of the BS perception issues... Andi Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef> ________________________________ From: Zeev Suraski <zeev@php.net> Sent: Friday, August 9, 2019 12:54 PM To: Internals Subject: [PHP-DEV] P++: FAQ During the discussion of the P++ proposal ( https://externals.io/message/106453), it became painfully clear that this idea did little, so far, to bring peace to the galaxy. However, based on a lot of the feedback, both on internals@ and elsewhere - it seems that a lot of people simply didn't really understand what this idea was actually proposing to do. I'll take the blame for that - by not making the idea sufficiently clear. I went on and create an FAQ, that attempts to address many of the questions and common misconceptions that repeatedly came up. It's available here: https://wiki.php.net/pplusplus/faq Before you read it, I want to stress that this is an attempt to provide *everyone with a good deal, and nobody with a raw deal. *It doesn't mean it's successful at that (although I think it is) - but the motivation is clean and positive. If & when you read this FAQ, please try to read it without any preconceived notions. If there are additional questions that you think are missing, please let me know - or better yet, if you're up for constructively adding them - go ahead and do that. Thanks, Zeev