Re: Resurrecting the Function Renaming Thread

These are all good points and are hard to argue with without going further off-track. Suddenly, we are discussing the structure of the core language. Maybe we should look at our major goals for this task - IMHO they are: 1.) Leave the namespace open for new extensions and for userland functions. 2.) Make function names consistent so that programmers don't have to remember that isset is the exception to the is_* type functions. These two things can be accomplished with the same mechanism and will save us all heartache in the future. I would like other things to happen, but there are the only things that I think must happen. --zak Richard Lynch wrote: [snip] > But where does it stop? > > Should we get rid of those curly braces and go back to :endif or whatever it > was so it will be more like VBS? > > One of the nice things about PHP3->PHP4 migration was the > backwards-compatibility: But it was *not* easy. > > Changing all these functions is a *huge* task, and maintaining both old and > new names indefinitely is monumental. > > Yes, it would have been "nicer" for newbies if the original authors had > decided to regularlize those function names rather than maintain their roots > to C or Perl or the OS or where-ever they came from. > > And, yes, some critics will always have ammunition from the odd names to > claim that PHP isn't a "real" language -- These are critics who will simply > pick some other fault if we change it anyway. > > Getting philosophical here for a moment -- I *like* that the function names > have a history behind them. There was a time in US history when immigrant > children were not taught their parents' and grandparents' language. > Virtually all have regretted that practice. I think we do a disservice to > try and force PHP into a new mold. Let the newbies ask "Why?" and learn > their history. > > So, let's keep the core functions funky -- Just think of it as a piece of > history lovingly preserved, no matter how illogical. :-) > > > > -- > PHP Quality Assurance Mailing List <http://www.php.net/> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-qa-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-qa-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net > >