2006/6/5, tg-php@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <tg-php@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
This is just one of those cases where the designers had to make a judgement call on how things were going to operate. It makes sense if you look at the two things separately (incrementing vs string 'greatness' evaluation) and makes sense that how they chose to implement the functions are two valid choices among many ways that it could have been handled.
How does it make sense? I don't understand your argument, can you explain it a little bit more?
From a developers point of view it becomes "it is what it is". Now understanding the nature of the beast we must accept that this is just how PHP works. It's not wrong, it's just strange when it comes to z++ combined with a for loop. Probably an unforeseen disconnect when designing PHP but the most important thing is understanding HOW it works (more so than 'why' it was designed that way) and coding accordingly.
I agree, this is what we have and what we asked for, we wanted to use strings on a math context and these things are bound to happen. But still saying that something is right/wrong/not right/not wrong in CS is a bold statement. On a certain context something may seem right but when the context changes it turns out to be wrong, for example suppose we have a programming language that handles strings the way PHP does, and it implements templates or generics (the term you prefer the most). The template/generic should have to be aware of strings when using math operators, because they don't behave the way a math literal would. There are many other ways to accomplish an A-Z sequence so as long as what's
been discussed is understood as "just how PHP is", and that it's logical for certain purposes, then we can choose one of the other choices for solving the problem.
I don't think it's only about us as developers using PHP, but us as community giving back something to the community. This might be a small issue but what would be the whole point of being an open-source community if we can't at least discuss about it? "It just the way things are" is not an argument, it's an excuse. -TG
