Re: [RFC] Reclassifying engine warnings

On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 4:33 AM Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com> wrote: > I think it's time to take a look at our existing warnings & notices in the > engine, and think about whether their current classification is still > appropriate. Error conditions like "undefined variable" only generating a > notice is really quite mind-boggling. > > I've prepared an RFC with some suggested classifications, though there's > room for bikeshedding here... > > https://wiki.php.net/rfc/engine_warnings Nikita, Thank you for your effort in putting together this RFC and explaining the rationale for each change. From my perspective, converting more error conditions from a notice/warning to an exception as proposed will be a welcome step forward for the language. I've frequently used PHP to write one-time scripts for migrating data between services, or scripting changes to thousands of items via an API. The lack of exceptions for things like undefined variables and using a scalar value as an array has bitten me on multiple occasions. There have even been times when simple mistakes like a typo in a variable name have led to data loss, since instead of causing the script to halt it just output a notice and continued running with bad data. In my experience, PHP's historical lax treatment of errors, far from making it faster and easier to write scripts, *actually makes it take longer* since I have to add extra assertions and boilerplate custom error handling code in order to ensure that scripts don't keep running in a broken state when one of these errors occurs. So in summary, I think the proposed RFC is a solid step forward which will help prevent expensive mistakes and make it simpler to write robust code. With appreciation, Theodore