Re: RFC: Short syntax for Arrays (redux)

> Now, the only reason I would personally support the array shortcut is > if it was an implementation of JSON. I know that's not on the table > here I don't think anything is officially off the table, unless we forego discussion. My application is largely JSON-powered. We pass data from back- to front-end via JSON, we interact with MongoDB via the extension (which is an altered JSON-like protocol (arrays instead of objects), but would be a lot more fluent with actual objects—they're just too hard to make in current PHP), and we interface with ElasticSearch. The paste I linked earlier is our primary ElasticSearch query. The benefits of first-class JSON are important and wide-reaching; especially when interacting with systems like the ones I've mentioned. There's a huge amount of value in being able to copy JSON out of PHP and into e.g. CURL to make a query to ElasticSearch without worrying that I've accidentally nested one level too deep or shallow, or accidentally mistranslating my arrays into JSON. This is not about saving five characters every time I type array(), it's about making my systems all work together in a way that's a little less abstracted, and a lot less prone to error. S