Re: [RFC Proposal] var keyword deprecation/removal

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 2/18/2016 9:58 PM, Colin O'Dell wrote: >> What are your reasons for this proposal? >> >> I can think of multiple reasons why this might not be a good >> idea, but the only reason that pops to mind for getting rid of it >> is to make PHP work like a different style of language. > > I'm proposing this change because it will remove duplicate > functionality from the language. > > In PHP 4, "var" was the only way to declare a class member > variable. PHP 5 introduced three new keywords for this purpose: > public, protected, and private. "public" is functionally identical > to "var". According to the docs: > >> Class properties must be defined as public, private, or >> protected. If declared using var, the property will be defined as >> public. > > This is great for backwards compatibility from PHP 4, but it > ultimately results in having two different keywords which do > exactly the same thing. Does PHP 7 really need two keywords for > declaring public class members? > > We're already removing PHP 4 style constructors in favor of the PHP > 5 style ones, so why not also remove the PHP 4 "var" keyword in > favor of the PHP 5 style keywords which explicitly state the > visibility? > > For the small percentage of projects which still use "var", > upgrading their code would be dead simple: just replace "var" with > "public" everywhere you see it. I'm sure somebody can easily whip > up a tool to automate that process. > > Because current usage of "var" seems low and the upgrade path is so > simple, I don't think its a bad idea. > > Colin > +1 for Colin’s proposal. Duplicate functionality results in confusion and this should be avoided and cleaned-up. There are already way too many aliased functions just to ease the learning curve for people that come from other languages (whatever that should bring to PHP). - -- Richard "Fleshgrinder" Fussenegger -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWxjQwAAoJEOKkKcqFPVVrtM4P/0KQbfYSTvRAuAUiVeQZwsUO 0W5yXlBDRkQfvrxh/xdirMIw0fX25tipsB++93pJ81ay00K2o623KmMKzM4U1rzu Pfk+HjnGN8iAQSGI0lvHCbgQLnAScOxzllB7NdchhyCP+LwTappDlT3Il/2THTg0 8ilMjBKOdG0tvwicYk4WYc8I9Z1Ryw37JUTp15sk0rE3M6OKRD7KUCVYZ1EfDTTW 0XGwfoOYT9yPEncw/p5jN0SM612kd25/4WfURsjjVhrjHk3l4UxRIh8SKacI/lWe Zs/WAJa/Nh8gJredgiOa7KO8VnNaeNTnJlXtnhSibdLMJ7lZPUz/4Wnum3/AHAte 2bqT+/5i6AKAi+izFl5IISBL7jh4cI9F1OFT3Z0IdKy1WXJtA37s4mHRmZLMcVvw HIJTDiBmMqE8PZVnc/Rf5A3QsQoC7h02Rnol7a5PU9990oDKW4lqxfXJRVLZT4Zf GlImZzdZ1dkzTJlTXLGSEthPrjR3IRsR0JCls5baYLg09OeJAOvOngKeJXZsIz7d BgoV32wlXtaWWp0hM6RWoztXymLppN8yRWMDwNhqQO7mHAI498KJyoIa46DrUVix sp0fBOnF+1chDn9uwEkqCZrUMhb+UGQAuyJikDyQALUNmNyi4xTjdv+pjDr3X0Qf 3iz95r9fJF3XqYUsP44r =r05h -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----