"I think they tried to remove the <?= a few years back)" Not quite. They deprecated `<?` but not `<?=`, see here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate_php_short_

"I think they tried to remove the <?= a few years back)" Not quite. They deprecated `<?` but not `<?=`, see here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate_php_short_tags https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate_php_short_tags Another PHP-RFC removed `<%`, `<%=`, and `<script language="php">` (I'll admit I didn't know about that one): https://wiki.php.net/rfc/remove_alternative_php_tags https://wiki.php.net/rfc/remove_alternative_php_tags - but as with before, this specifically retained `<?=`.