On 1/23/14 1:31 PM, Rowan Collins wrote:
Therein lies the whole problem with adding more aliases - it just makes
things more inconsistent, as developers can use (deliberately or
accidentally) different names for the same function.
I still have to think a moment when I see sizeof() or print, rather than
count() or echo - let alone having to remember which version of PHP
introduced which alias so that libraries don't break when deployed to
older servers.
I think it's far better to have replacements for whole sets of functions
that are clearly "new and shiny" - be that OO strings and arrays, or
just namespaces for extensions like mbstring. In fact, a namespace for
mbstring could allow a much cleaner version of the "override normal
string functions" system, because you could just "use" the namespace,
and have functions with overlapping names...
Regards,
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
Agreed. Simply aliasing a bunch of functions offers no useful value, but does increase confusion. ("Wait, do I use strcmp() or string_compare() on this project? What version are we on again? Oh, look, this library uses both. Must have been different devs. FML.")
If we're going to do anything, be aggressive and far-reaching with it. Build a proper language-level OOP design for string/array manipulation.
We have enough functions lying about. Don't add more.
--Larry Garfield