Re: [RFC] Readonly Properties

Hi, On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com> wrote: > hi Andrea, > > On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 6:36 AM, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote: >> Good evening once again, >> >> Here’s another RFC: >> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/readonly_properties >> >> It proposes, with a working implementation, a modifier for properties that makes them >> readable and writeable from different scopes. >> >> Since I am a big proponent of including specification patches in new RFCs, I have decided >> to put my money (or rather, time) where my mouth is and I have actually written a specification >> patch before writing an RFC. I would love to see this become the new standard for RFCs affecting the >> language. >> >> If you are curious at all about the behaviour, I suggest perusing the fairly comprehensive >> set of twelve tests included in the main patch to php-src. > > As much i really like the idea to have better properties management in > PHP I see this RFC as an attempt to solve only part of the problem > while dropping most of the other ideas implemented in the past RFCs. > My take on that is that some will vote no, or won't like the idea of > adding anything in this area. Making compromises and implement partial > solutions will only delay the implementation of the complete solution. > > Many of us agree that __get/__set is a pain to deal with.The need of > readonly, writeonly or properties with some logic to define or get a > value is a lond due need. Many other languages support that out of the > box since long already. Past RFCs, like the c# one, proposed that. I > would rather focus on trying to find an acceptable syntax and > implementation instead of doing baby steps like that. Baby steps work > very well for scalar type hinting, solving one issue after another, > etc. But for properties we are at the risk of hainvg a serie of > separate RFCs solving the properties management problems in different > ways bringing even more troubles and inconsistencies. Pierre, I rarely disagree with you, but this is one such case. It is true that we can look at this as a partial solution to a bigger problem, or as you said - a baby step. However, I see this as the perfect solution for a very narrow, yet also a very common problem, and I don't see it blocking a more abstract solution in the future. From a userland POV, it is simple, very effective and there's practically no way to achieve the same goal with less amount of code. In short - it's no panacea to all the limitations that we currently have on property management, but it is still *extremely* useful for implementing classes that only need to have getters. On another note, I share Nikita's concern about using the "readonly" keyword and I'd love that to be improved, but the best alternative I could think of is "readable" and IMO it doesn't have a clearer meaning. Cheers, Andrey.