Re: Resurrecting the Function Renaming Thread

At 17:55 7.2. 2001, Richard Lynch wrote the following: -------------------------------------------------------------- >> Can this be summed up to "alias, but never deprecate the >> original names"? >> >> BTW, one of the major problems PHP suffers is that if you >> _don't_ come from C or Perl (novice programmer or VB, e. g.), >> you feel terribly, because PHP is one hell of a mess. >> One _hell_ of a _mess_. > >Are the core functions really all that messy? As someone without prior C knowledge, I think I'm qualified to say they really are. :) (YMMV, of course) >I mean, any novice programmer in any language is going to have to memorize >the core functions and their arguments, no matter what the language. Well, it doesn't have to be that way. I'm sure that if I had to learn the "clean" version of PHP, it would take me maybe less than a third of a time compared to the real one. The difference? In one case you have to memorize the function names and their arguments, in the other you're set off with knowledge of a few principles and english. * I wouldn't have to memorize bin2hex() and bindec(), and wouldn't consistently put / omit the '2' in the wrong function. * I wouldn't have to memorize that explode() is different from strstr(). (Let me explain: implode is like strstr in that sense that it takes two arguments, which can be percieved as a haystack and a needle. You break the haystack on the needle. But if you look at it this way--which I, sorry me, do--you see the inconsistency.) * Lots of other things. ____________________________________________________________ Cynic: A member of a group of ancient Greek philosophers who taught that virtue constitutes happiness and that self control is the essential part of virtue. cynic@mail.cz