note 90394 deleted from language.namespaces.basics by danbrown

Note Submitter: xing at mac dot com ---- Having backslash (\) as the namespace operator is just a bone-headed decision. I have read the IRC log which the meeting took place and the readability issue of the selection is superseded by other technical benefits this may have had behind the scenes. PHP is a language. With any language, human or computer, readability is a paramount issue. Programmer have known and understood and more importantly accepted the logic behind using ->, ::, or . within their code as a universal form of syntax grammar: part of, class of, member of, method of, package of, etc. What is \? Why is the PHP group reinventing? Did the PHP team poll the developers, perhaps not the general public but at least the internal non-core developers that deal only with PHP code and not internals? You guys choose "\" because it had less conflicts internally and potentially less problems to deal with. Well, unfortunately, those that voted yes forgot that PHP is a language. You don't introduce a random new grammatical syntax because of potential tech problems, you work around them internally, and if that's way too difficult, that's too bad. It's not the concern of the users, frankly, that making sense takes longer than reinventing the wheel. People that speak the language, us, the developers, come first when you decide to introduce nonsense into our grammar. That's what this is, a new/non-nonsensical representation of a meaning/grammar that has already been established by the rest of the world, for a very long time. Thanks for listening and please reconsider. It's never too late.