> On Aug 22, 2024, at 5:32 PM, Rowan Tommins [IMSoP] <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was thinking about this earlier, and how the migration is pretty much the same (and equally
> automatable) in either direction:
>
> * If unqualified calls become always local, then every global function call needs a use
> statement or prefixing with "\".
> * If they become always global, then every local function call needs a use statement or
> prefixing with "namespace\".
>
> But the first option probably requires changes in the majority of PHP files in use anywhere;
> whereas the second only affects a small minority of code bases, and a small minority of code in
> those.
>
> BUT, if people already complain about "\" being ugly, having to write
> "namespace\" is going to make them REALLY grumpy...
>
> So maybe at the same time (or, probably, in advance) we need to come up with a nicer syntax for
> explicitly referencing the current namespace.
>
> Unfortunately, finding unused syntax is hard, which is why we have "\" in the first
> place (and for the record, I think it works just fine), but maybe something like "_\"
> could work? Giving us:
>
> namespace Foo;
>
> $native_length = strlen('hello'); # same as \strlen('hello')
> $foo_length = _\strlen('hello'); # same as \Foo\strlen('hello')
>
If having to type \strlen() is ugly — and I agree that is it — then having to type
_\strlen() is what in university we would call "fugly," to emphasize just how
much worse something was vs. just run-of-the-mill "ugly."
Having to prefix with a name like Foo, e.g. Foo\strlen() is FAR PREFERABLE to _\strlen() because at
least it provides satiating information rather than the empty calories of a cryptic shorthand.
#jmtcw, anyway.
> If I had a time machine, I'd campaign for "unqualified means local" in PHP 5.3,
> and we'd all be used to writing "\strlen" by now; but "unqualified means
> global" feels much more achievable from where we are.
>
If I had a time machine I would campaign for real packages instead of what namespaces turned out to
me, and that used sigils that do not double as the escape character for strings, but then both of us
digress.
-Mike