We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP • Hacker News Board

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#41

Post by soulclap » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:20 AM UTC

lifthrasiir wrote: post #35

soulclap wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, exactly. It doesn't say what happens, so pass floats or expect the unexpected. I get your point but I don't think I have ever seen documentation anywhere that covers all of the possible 'abuse' scenarios.

It is possible to add a catch-all clause to the documentation. For example any non-float argument is converted to float via floatval(), or raises an error, and so on. This behavior can be made consistent across every API so that the documentation has only one place to describe it. PHP is missing this either AFAIK.

I agree this would be ideal. Will definitely keep this in mind when writing documentation (and code) for my own tiny open source projects. All the double and triple checking just adds so much bloat most of the time...

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#42

Post by Evbn » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:21 AM UTC

Wait, endosquid writes tax software and expects that whenever a bit of data gets corrupted it should display an account balance of 0? Please share the name of this phenomenal software product.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#43

Post by phene » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:23 AM UTC

steve8918 wrote: post #28

TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with point A. The old behavior makes a LOT more sense symbolically. I tell you that you have no apples. Write the number of apples you have on a piece of paper. What did you write? I bet it was 0, not some arbitrary, non-writable symbol for an abstract concept that could mean "nothing" or "error" or "empty" or ..

I don't agree with your analogy. The question is more similar to "Can you please tell me the number format of ". How can the answer to an unfinished question be "0"? 0 is an actual valid answer, when people are asking for number_format(0, 0). In this case, NULL is definitely more appropriate, because the input is invalid.

What's the numeric representation of the volume of ? 0 dB

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#44

Post by toyg » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:24 AM UTC

jconley wrote: post #17

Regardless of merit on either side, the attitude presented by the creator of PHP in this post makes PHP and open source in general look bad. Seriously? I still can't believe that's how the situation was handled. EDIT: Rasmus calls the bug reporter an idiot in the first reply. It's probably some sysadmin that has been tasked with upgrading the infrastructure and really has no idea what to do. So rude. It would take ju…

Can you imagine how many fools like this Rasmus Lerdorf has to deal with, every. single. day. since he created PHP? Same for Linus Torvalds. After a while, you just stop trying to sugar-coat idiocy, and just tell them as it is.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#45

Post by chavesn » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:27 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #15

quink wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) The new behaviour makes more sense. B) The change was discovered as a difference in behaviour in two major releases that were three years apart. C) Rasmus Lerdorf can change PHP however he wants. It is precisely because of this that PHP has been so {'widely success', 'pain'}ful. D) The reporter was being overly dramatic regarding the change going to take a supposedly crazy amount of time to fix. E) You don't pass…

I disagree with point A. The old behavior makes a LOT more sense symbolically. I tell you that you have no apples. Write the number of apples you have on a piece of paper. What did you write? I bet it was 0, not some arbitrary, non-writable symbol for an abstract concept that could mean "nothing" or "error" or "empty" or ..

I agree with Steve. "No apples" actually is "0 apples".

Your analogy is a misunderstanding of null. Null is like you asking me how many apples Joe has. I say I don't know. If you write down 0, I'm going to stop you and say, "I didn't say zero, I said I don't know."

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#46

Post by mpd » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:29 AM UTC

sunils34 wrote: post #38

jconley wrote: post #17

Regardless of merit on either side, the attitude presented by the creator of PHP in this post makes PHP and open source in general look bad. Seriously? I still can't believe that's how the situation was handled. EDIT: Rasmus calls the bug reporter an idiot in the first reply. It's probably some sysadmin that has been tasked with upgrading the infrastructure and really has no idea what to do. So rude. It would take ju…

Can you imagine how Linus would have handled it? I think Rasmus was fairly composed.

I'm honestly chuckling at the thought of Linus responding to this one in Rasmus' place.

If you need the features of an old version, use the old version. Simple as that. Don't expect the rest of the world to be stuck with dealing with backward compatibility just so you aren't inconvenienced. Upgrade, pay for support, move to another platform, or stop complaining.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#47

Post by josephcooney » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:30 AM UTC

Way to jump onto a thread that hadn't had any comments in 10-month-old joezimjs and add pretty much zero to the conversation.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#48

Post by fink0136 » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:31 AM UTC

This makes me so excited to be a budding Perl dev.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#49

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:32 AM UTC

steve8918 wrote: post #28

TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with point A. The old behavior makes a LOT more sense symbolically. I tell you that you have no apples. Write the number of apples you have on a piece of paper. What did you write? I bet it was 0, not some arbitrary, non-writable symbol for an abstract concept that could mean "nothing" or "error" or "empty" or ..

I don't agree with your analogy. The question is more similar to "Can you please tell me the number format of ". How can the answer to an unfinished question be "0"? 0 is an actual valid answer, when people are asking for number_format(0, 0). In this case, NULL is definitely more appropriate, because the input is invalid.

[deleted]

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#50

Post by felipellrocha » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 4:32 AM UTC

phene wrote: post #43

steve8918 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with your analogy. The question is more similar to "Can you please tell me the number format of ". How can the answer to an unfinished question be "0"? 0 is an actual valid answer, when people are asking for number_format(0, 0). In this case, NULL is definitely more appropriate, because the input is invalid.

What's the numeric representation of the volume of ? 0 dB

I think you missed the point here. Steve's analogy asks for a number format, not a volume...