Re: Re: [PHP6] Function name consistency

From: Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 20:38:07 +0000
Subject: Re: Re: [PHP6] Function name consistency
References: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  Groups: php.internals 
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On 1/24/14 2:27 PM, Yasuo Ohgaki wrote:


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.



We should be careful choosing names. I agree.
However, not adding more function names is simply impossible.
For example, I'm about to add new session function named

string session_create_id([string $prefix])

for user save handlers, so that user could generate secure ID
easily. It's a straight name for session ID creation and there
might be users using this name.

Not adding any new names means not adding any new features
nor cleanups.

Regards,


I don't mean "never add a function again".  I mean adding functions for no particular value other than having more of them helps nothing, and arguably makes the situation worse.  Where possible, we shouldn't be adding yet-another-utility-function but looking to how to build more complete and functional language capabilities and standard libraries, rather than piecemeal addition of functions one RFC at a time.

For your example, for instance, session handling is as of PHP 5.4 an object.  That's the cleaner way to handle it than a bunch of functions.  Can that function be better integrated into an API rather than just added to a long list of tools?  I don't know; maybe.  But we should be asking those questions, not saying "how many more ways to type strcmp() can we introduce to confuse people."

--Larry Garfield

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