Should elephc support generics? :)

[nahime0]

With all the recent discussion around generics in PHP, I'm curious:

If Elephc could support language-level generics, would you want them?

Or should Elephc stay as close to PHP as possible?

[kambo-1st]

My opinion: only if it is the same as generics in PHP. I really like Larry Garfield's post on this topic:

https://externals.io/message/130816#131230

This is not only about whether generics will be added to PHP or not. It is also about their form and the extent to which they are implemented.

Any attempt to introduce something substantially different, or to create a forked solution, will likely lead to further fragmentation and potentially another HHVM-like situation. The PHP community cannot afford that.

[nahime0]

I agree. If generics ever land in Elephc, I'd strongly prefer them to be compatible with whatever PHP ultimately adopts.

The challenge is that PHP itself is still figuring out what generics should look like, so it's probably a bit early to make any decisions.

[kambo-1st]

The challenge is that PHP itself is still figuring out what generics should look like, so it's probably a bit early to make any decisions.

I think that's alright. I don't know of any mainstream language that has fully fledged generics without some form of compilation or transpilation. So this is genuinely a major undertaking, and it will take time.