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So what you’re saying is that by introducing type checks, you’re actually uncovering bugs. Seems to me like proof of value right there. What does surprise me i

So what you’re saying is that by introducing type checks, you’re actually uncovering bugs. Seems to me like proof of value right there. What does surprise me is that adding types to your PHP code adds _runtime_ errors. With Python, type annotations are predominantly used by static typecheckers and are ignored at runtime (except from some libraries like FastAPI that use reflection to inspect the type annotations). I always assumed all dynamically typed languages that introduced explicit types worked the same way

deergomoo 3y ago
> What does surprise me is that adding types to your PHP code adds _runtime_ errors There are static analysers for PHP too, but yeah they’re also enforced at runtime. I think I prefer that, if there’s going to be a non-zero risk of bad types landing in production code, I’d prefer that be an error than for it to just carry on and potentially fail later in strange ways. That said, one of the reasons cited for PHP not having generics is the performance cost of runtime enforcement. So there are a few people out there now making the case for a generic syntax that is ignored at runtime, but that can be built into static tooling. Which I can get behind—PHPs type system is really not bad at this point, but generics would be really nice.
- DandyDev 3y ago
  I would also prefer type checks to be done at runtime as well. The reason Python doesn’t do that is likely indeed the cost to performance
rob74 3y ago
Well no, maybe there was a legitimate reason to pass null instead of a string (I mean, nullable types exist for a reason), and then you just introduced a bug because you didn't look hard enough at all the places your function is called (which can take some time).
- kaba0 3y ago
  If you have a null-aware type system, then you just can’t call your function with a null, so no bug? Also, if you just annotated the same implementation that already didn’t handle nulls properly, how is it any different? Your code would just die at runtime a few lines later, with a less explicit errorz

deergomoo 3y ago

> What does surprise me is that adding types to your PHP code adds _runtime_ errors There are static analysers for PHP too, but yeah they’re also enforced at runtime. I think I prefer that, if there’s going to be a non-zero risk of bad types landing in production code, I’d prefer that be an error than for it to just carry on and potentially fail later in strange ways. That said, one of the reasons cited for PHP not having generics is the performance cost of runtime enforcement. So there are a few people out there now making the case for a generic syntax that is ignored at runtime, but that can be built into static tooling. Which I can get behind—PHPs type system is really not bad at this point, but generics would be really nice.

DandyDev 3y ago
I would also prefer type checks to be done at runtime as well. The reason Python doesn’t do that is likely indeed the cost to performance

rob74 3y ago

Well no, maybe there was a legitimate reason to pass null instead of a string (I mean, nullable types exist for a reason), and then you just introduced a bug because you didn't look hard enough at all the places your function is called (which can take some time).

kaba0 3y ago
If you have a null-aware type system, then you just can’t call your function with a null, so no bug? Also, if you just annotated the same implementation that already didn’t handle nulls properly, how is it any different? Your code would just die at runtime a few lines later, with a less explicit errorz