But I have to ask: what's the matter. A good programming language should not force the developer to program as the language wants. A good programming language should support the developer in writing code he likes, the way he likes.
So, you are new to php internal huh? =)
Seriously, the language can not be adapted to every whim of every developer. Adding several ways to do things was fine when PHP was a neat tool to mess around with. Now people's paychecks depend on it. IMO, it's a slippery slope to just add things because you can.
This could be improved by an alternative syntax.
Ah, but not all see it as an improvement. Peronsally, every time I see this type of syntax in perl or javascript, I cringe. Luckily I don't do much perl. When I see it in JS, I change it.
The funny thing is that Andi probably could have just commited this to the PHP6 tree and made an announcement. There would have been ~4 replies and it would have been over with.
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Brian Moon
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http://dealnews.com/
It's good to be cheap =)