Re: Optional pre-compiler for PHP8?

> On Oct 29, 2019, at 5:49 PM, Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com> wrote: > > I think the problem is that as soon as you have two engines targeting different feature sets, > it will be hard to persuade people to spend equal attention on both. If all the new features end up > being added to one engine, the other one is going to increasingly feel like "legacy mode", > rather than "equal but different". That is a fair point. > It would be much better to keep it separate, and opt into it via a declare() statement, or a > package configuration, or a file extension. There have been proposals for a single flag, lots of > separate flags, a complete "P++" dialect, or bundles of settings ("Editions"). Correct me if I am wrong, but all of those have been objected to, strenuously, by at least several people on the list. What will it take to finally get enough consensus to move forward? > Both/all modes should get the same performance improvements, except where the actual features > are necessarily slower or faster. Fine. But a pre-compiler still could have merit. One of the things I would like to see from a pre-compiler is getting rid of the need to deal with an autoloader and hence we able to store multiple related classes in the same file. Primarily I would like this will doing R&D on a project idea prior to fully understanding what the object hierarchy needs to be. That, of course, would conflict with the non-pre-compiled code by its very nature. -Mike