Re: Initializing constants once, with code?

Hi Larry, Thanks for replying. > It seems to me it would be much cleaner to just... build that into a static method call with > the derivation-and-caching logic behind the scenes. It's not complicated code. That is exactly what I have been doing, and what I am finding suboptimal. The problem is that, most of the time and especially when refactoring poorly written code, we just want a constant. One line in the class file, hard coded. We ideally don't want to have to write a full functionr. So for five data elements, 5 easy to read lines of code with constants vs. 20 harder to read lines with functions, or at least 40 lines if we include PHPDoc for those functions, which is part of our standard for writing functions. When we *later* want to be able to refactor to initialize with code we want to do so w/o having to modify the code that is already using the constants. But we many never actually need to do so. What I am asking for is the option. Basically, in my view, a programming language is better if it can support refactoring a reusable unit of code to add additional functionality W/O requiring the code that uses the reusable element to be modified. Using your proposed approach we cannot start using constants and later move to functions unless we modify all code that uses those constants. That is Bad JuJu(tm) in my book. OTOH, if PHP 8.x would allow functions w/o parameters to be called w/o parenthesis then your approach satisfy the use-case: class Stuff { protected $val; public static function VAL() { self::$val ??= computeStuff(); return self::$val; } } echo Stuff::VAL; //<== if this could work then using functions would address the use-case. > I agree with the use case, but not with the solution of piggybacking them onto constants. Let me put it more concretely. What I am asking for is this: > "Transitionally of reusable code when using constants that does not require modifying code > that already uses the constant." So using functions does not actually address the use-case I am identifying. Is there some technical reason why you object to extending constants, or is it your objection more stylistic? -Mike