Comments on: Namespaces in PHP? Why *wouldn’t* you want them? http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/ Facebook should've be written in unicornSchemaLang, because everyone *knows* that PHP is no good for anything, right? Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:04:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Chris Hartjes http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10584 Chris Hartjes Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:17:50 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10584 @Travis Thanks for pointing that out to me. Once namespaces are available I'm sure I'll experiment with it. Maybe it's one of those things where the name confuses things. Calling it 'namespaces' makes sense to me, but I'm more sensible than some more, shall we say, militant developers. @ken Well, it wasn't that long ago that they weren't going to but namespaces into 5.3, so I preferred to take the safe route. ;) @Travis

Thanks for pointing that out to me. Once namespaces are available I’m sure I’ll experiment with it. Maybe it’s one of those things where the name confuses things. Calling it ‘namespaces’ makes sense to me, but I’m more sensible than some more, shall we say, militant developers.

@ken

Well, it wasn’t that long ago that they weren’t going to but namespaces into 5.3, so I preferred to take the safe route. ;)

]]> By: ken http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10583 ken Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:37:29 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10583 "Namespaces are expected to be a feature in future releases of PHP." Might want to reword that :) http://php.net/namespaces "Namespaces are available in PHP as of PHP 5.3.0." “Namespaces are expected to be a feature in future releases of PHP.”

Might want to reword that :)

http://php.net/namespaces

“Namespaces are available in PHP as of PHP 5.3.0.”

]]> By: Travis Swicegood http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10582 Travis Swicegood Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:57:48 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10582 @Chris - the problem is when you do a 'from foo import *' style import, something that I'm relatively certain isn't possible in PHP 5.3 for the reason of the problem is introduces. What happens when namespace foo and bar both have a Foo class? Collisions occur and you get errors. As for the nay-sayers, the problems I've heard have all revolved around the half-attempt to implement them and the fact that they actually end up implementing what the Java world calls a package and what Python does with location based modules. It's been more a matter of semantics, not whether or not namespaces should be there. @Chris – the problem is when you do a ‘from foo import *’ style import, something that I’m relatively certain isn’t possible in PHP 5.3 for the reason of the problem is introduces. What happens when namespace foo and bar both have a Foo class? Collisions occur and you get errors.

As for the nay-sayers, the problems I’ve heard have all revolved around the half-attempt to implement them and the fact that they actually end up implementing what the Java world calls a package and what Python does with location based modules. It’s been more a matter of semantics, not whether or not namespaces should be there.

]]> By: Chris Hartjes http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10577 Chris Hartjes Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:37:04 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10577 @Alex I understand what you're getting at, as any feature in any language can be abused if you're willing to try hard enough. :) I don't quite follow your second comment though. If you have classes with the same name in two different namespaces, why do you need to check for collisions? As long as you specify the namespace when calling those classes, everything should be fine. Am I misunderstanding your question? @Alex

I understand what you’re getting at, as any feature in any language can be abused if you’re willing to try hard enough. :)

I don’t quite follow your second comment though. If you have classes with the same name in two different namespaces, why do you need to check for collisions? As long as you specify the namespace when calling those classes, everything should be fine.

Am I misunderstanding your question?

]]> By: Stickymaddness http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10576 Stickymaddness Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:27:43 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10576 Well said Chris, you pretty much summed up what I thought when I first heard about namespaces being supported in php6. IMHO it's something that would be a great addition to php. I'm surprised how anti many people are to new php functionality such as namespaces or the proposed alternate array declaration syntax. Well said Chris, you pretty much summed up what I thought when I first heard about namespaces being supported in php6. IMHO it’s something that would be a great addition to php. I’m surprised how anti many people are to new php functionality such as namespaces or the proposed alternate array declaration syntax.

]]> By: Alex http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10575 Alex Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:37:44 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10575 I think namespaces are (a little) useful only to library- and framework-developers. As a "frontend-programmer" maybe I will never use them, because "explicit is better than implicit", so I will end up writing Namespace::Subspace::Class::someMethod(), exactly as I am doing now, writing Namespace_Subspace_Class::someMethod() Even in Python and Vala I always write the full class "path" when instantiating. The problem arises when you have different classes with the same name in different namespaces, and you import them all. You have to check every namespace for collisions with others, and risk those collisions to be introduced in a later version of the library. Or you end up having a (possibly long) list of "import Foo:Bar:Baz as Baz1; import Bee::Bur::Baz as Baz2;". This also lowers the value of __autoload(), which I use extensively with PEAR-like "namespaces". Bye. I think namespaces are (a little) useful only to library- and framework-developers.
As a “frontend-programmer” maybe I will never use them, because “explicit is better than implicit”, so I will end up writing Namespace::Subspace::Class::someMethod(), exactly as I am doing now, writing Namespace_Subspace_Class::someMethod()

Even in Python and Vala I always write the full class “path” when instantiating.

The problem arises when you have different classes with the same name in different namespaces, and you import them all. You have to check every namespace for collisions with others, and risk those collisions to be introduced in a later version of the library.
Or you end up having a (possibly long) list of “import Foo:Bar:Baz as Baz1; import Bee::Bur::Baz as Baz2;”.
This also lowers the value of __autoload(), which I use extensively with PEAR-like “namespaces”.

Bye.

]]> By: Chris Hartjes http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10571 Chris Hartjes Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:53:39 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10571 @Matthew Just read the blog post and some of the issues you are talking about seem to be easily solved. Not trivial, as they require some refactoring work of existing code, but easily solved. These issues will come up more and more once namespaces actually hit, and people will blame the wrong things. @Matthew

Just read the blog post and some of the issues you are talking about seem to be easily solved. Not trivial, as they require some refactoring work of existing code, but easily solved. These issues will come up more and more once namespaces actually hit, and people will blame the wrong things.

]]> By: Brian D. http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10570 Brian D. Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:22:11 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10570 I'm with you on this one, Chris! I've not really kept up with internals, either, but on PHP Planet and elsewhere I've not understood why it's even an issue. I’m with you on this one, Chris! I’ve not really kept up with internals, either, but on PHP Planet and elsewhere I’ve not understood why it’s even an issue.

]]> By: Matthew Weier O'Phin http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/2008/06/30/namespaces-in-php-why-wouldnt-you-want-them/comment-page-1/#comment-10569 Matthew Weier O'Phin Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:44:31 +0000 http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard/?p=281#comment-10569 BTW, Chris, you may also want to read my blog posting on the subject, and some of the potential issues we're seeing in Zend Framework with migrating to true namespaces from the pseudo-namespaces we already currently employ: http://weierophinney.net/matthew/archives/181-Migrating-OOP-Libraries-and-Frameworks-to-PHP-5.3.html BTW, Chris, you may also want to read my blog posting on the subject, and some of the potential issues we’re seeing in Zend Framework with migrating to true namespaces from the pseudo-namespaces we already currently employ: http://weierophinney.net/matthew/archives/181-Migrating-OOP-Libraries-and-Frameworks-to-PHP-5.3.html

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