Re: RfC: rethink OO inheritance strictness

At 01:06 03/08/2006, Marcus Boerger wrote:

Hello Richard, Wednesday, August 2, 2006, 11:55:45 PM, you wrote: On Wed, August 2, 2006 7:32 am, Zeev Suraski wrote:

I believe the problem is that 10 years ago we introduced what can be described as 'loose OO programming', and we're replacing it (instead of augmenting it) with strict OO programming.

And there are people who actually LIKE the 'loose OO programming' paradigm. Presumably also some who don't really care, but who have significant bodies of code utilizing the 'looseness' who will simply refuse to upgrade to PHP 5 -- thus exacerbating the problem of PHP 4 sticking around for far longer than some would like. There is no problem with 4. It works it has its friends. Why should we discontinue it like Microsoft would do? Give me any reason. We just do not add new features.

I can think of a bunch, security problems, bugs and stuck-in-the-past-technology-wise problems. Why should someone who wants to use more modern technologies like SimpleXML or ext/soap be forced to change the way he's writing PHP classes? Answer - no reason. Which is why compatibility and considering how the 'loose people' will be able to use PHP versions is extremely important. Zeev