Re: on the coding standards - Re: [PEAR-DEV] PEAR Group June 24 2007 Meeting Minutes

Hi, Arnaud Limbourg wrote:

"*_once including of files not allowed" - Requires autoload() mechanisms, which are not considered by all to be the best mechanism for loading files and documenting code.. - This is a significant change and would need serious backing by all members.. I think a long time ago someone proposed class_exists(.....) ? false : require_once '......'; This seems a better compromise - as it solves 2 problem with one shot. - although an import statement would be better......

The issue trying to be solved here is to be opcoce cache friendly.

I'd really like to see something like "developer X, who maintains opcode cache Y, suggests this approach in his (tutorial|presentation|article) which can be read at [Z]." here, not just vigorous handwaving. It is also obvious the allfiles.php approach is extremely un-friendly to those not using the opcode cache. If you are targeting PHP6 (which will supposedly have a built-in opcode cache) why are you not targeting its other features (say, namespaces)? Also I see reliance on __autoload(), but if I understand correctly, we aren't going to provide an __autoload() implementation, so that people will have to write this themselves. I'd bet that their __autoload()'s will contain require_once calls and other *interesting* things.