M
Mathias Gaunard
Roland said:What I mean is that it makes no sense for a language to have 2 similar
constructs for (almost) the same underlying concept.
There is absolutely no acceptable way to do unification.
Each are needed for different reasons.
The only way to do an unification would be to turn pointers and
references into Java references.
Which we don't want, because we don't want to pay for what we don't use.
Yes, but PHP5 also breaks PHP4 code.
First, C++ is not PHP. PHP is a very high-level language, which isn't
even a generalistic one, and that has lots of memory related issues.
PHP also was never carefully designed but more hacked as time passed,
adding features from other languages, and doesn't go through the process
of standardization.
And second, this isn't even true. It's fully compatible unless relying
on old bugs. There is switch allowing you to choose whether you want
objects to have copy or reference semantics.
If you insist that a new language
version must be a superset of the current then no real evolution is
possible.
Evolution is possible. But only in the sense that you get stuff added,
not removed.