I'd rather see <?php= than having this whole "short_open_tag" thing at all.
Does <?php= work? I though echo shortcut works only with short tags. <?php= is not much worse than <?= so it'd be OK with me. Downside would be template systems couldn't use it until 5.3 is widely deployed - which means no template system can use it as standard for about 2-3 years at least. Unless we put <?php= in 5.2, which would make me a happy camper, but might be a trouble for others.
I'd even use it myself. But I will not EVER enable the damn short tags again. And won't allow anyone else doing it either. And speaking of
What's wrong with short tags, can anybody explain me?
hostile code: ALL code is hostile unless you wrote it yourself. Have you
Not true. You probably use a ton of libraries, never verifying they don['t screw up your include path, memory limits, etc.? Why short tags are so different?
And as you yourself instructed to check for "short_open_tag" in the archive search: Count how many hits it gives which talk about _problems_ with it.
Can you show which exactly search query you used, so we'd be sure we are talking about the same thing?
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Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
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