The thing is that <?php echo would require a ; while <?phpecho wouldn't.
And if you ronly argument is saving a few keystrokes then we should really
get rid of short open tags completely. And definitively not making their
use easier.
It is easier to use templates with <?= ?> then with full PHP syntax, they look cleaner. Just look how many other templates use "tag" syntax - either {SOMETHING} or <%= SOMETHING %> or some like that. Do you that's because they are too stupid or too lazy - or because they listen to the users? ASP, JSP and Ruby all have <%=, does it teach us anything about people liking short tags?
Look how many examples you short syntax - why is that? Because it looks better and easy to read. And the only objection to that is - it's not valid XML. OK, it is not valid XML - why should it be? Why should PHP programmer work harder and PHP code look worse than Ruby, JSP or ASP - just because of arbitrary requirement of XML compliance?
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Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
stas@zend.com http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829 MSN: stas@zend.com