Why doesn't PHP remove the horrid $ symbol for variables and the -> symbol for calling methods? I think those alone would do a lot more for its perception and adoption than adding the pipe operator.
I also prefer the look of ->, it’s _cool_
-> in PHP and C++ looks clean by comparison.
I'll never forgive them for the brain fart they made of the namespace separator, though.
You mean the backslash? What's wrong with that?
It was decided almost 20 years ago so I'm totally used to it and there's no point arguing about it anymore. But the decision to reuse the backslash as a namespace separator still causes inconvenience from time to time. For example, when you write PSR-4 configuration in composer.json, all the backslashes need to be doubled, including (and especially!) the trailing backslash.
I actually like the clarity these dollar signs add in a code base. Makes it easier to recognise (dynamic) functions, and makes it harder to accidentally shadow methods.
Other languages will let you do `const Math = {}` and nuke the entire math library, or write stuff like `int fopen = 0;` to make the fopen method call inaccessible in that scope. With PHP, you don't need to restrict your variable name to "something that hopefully won't conflict with an obscure method".
The -> is a leftover from an older programming language that I'd rather have replaced by a ., but not at the cost of breaking existing code (which it surely would).
Isn't it because . was already used for string concatenation in PHP. I mean the -> syntax wasn't invented by PHP but it didn't just inherit it without thought either.
As a result, taking a php 5.2 script and moving it up to 8.5 is super easy, and taking a PHP 4 one is barely harder only longer (since it probably uses the horrors that were register_globals and co).
Ultimately, I prefer this than a fragmented ecosystem impossible to resolve.
Because it simply can't do that in a retro-compatible way. -> isn't so bad, C/C++ uses that as well. as for $ I guess it came from Perl. The point is already used for string concatenation, where other languages would overload the + operator.
Just to be clear: consistency does very much matter. The mental load of reading totally different styles of code is awful and a waste of energy.