NYCPHP Meetup

[George Schlossnagle]

On Mar 4, 2005, at 11:56 AM, Tom Melendez wrote:

> Well, I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion, but since 
> George threw his hat in, I have to back him up.
>
> I agree with George. OO is a great way to keep things organized and 
> modular, but I'm not thrilled with "everything" being OO for no 
> particular reason.
>
> It is ironic that it is going this way, as I met Rasmus at the BOF at 
> Linuxworld in 1999 (I believe it was then, there was only six or seven 
> of us there), and he specifically said that he DIDN'T believe PHP 
> needed OO, which was why it wasn't truly implemented back then. In 
> hindsight, I can't say I totally agree, as I think having the OO 
> functionality is a good thing. But, who does the "Java-esque" syntax 
> and features of PHP5 really benefit?

I think the java-esque syntax and features in php5 benefit the people 
who like OOP.  PHP3/4's OO model was built by people who didn't like 
OOP and didn't really want it in the language.  And it shows.  PHP5's 
support is nice, imho.  It adds a number of 'standard' OOP features 
that people who like to use OOP expect and appreciate.  I like where 
PHP5's OOP support is going because it (again, imho) keeps along the 
lines of 'A language with good OOP support' and not 'A good OOP 
language'.  That's a fine semantic difference that means alot to me.

George