Yeah I read that Wiki. The problem is, they added closures, but it seems like it’s only because it’s trendy and cool these days (groovy, ruby, scala, everyone has them). As a result, the feature is there, but it’s cumbersome to use.

> PHP has always resisted allow you to have
> two ways of doing the same action.

PHP is built incrementally, features are just tossed in randomly (at least it seems so sometimes), so redundant functionality is very common. Just take a look at PHP function list…

Personally, I think they did closures this way because it was easier. Otherwise, they’d have to improve PHP parser, and that’s why we got this clumsy syntax.

At least we can forget about create_function, which is obviously a good thing :)

Your correct in your observations of PHP, but you missed the reason my these features were added. (http://wiki.php.net/rfc/closures)

It was intended to clean up some issues with current use of things like create_function (http://us2.php.net/create_function).

PHP has always resisted allow you to have two ways of doing the same action. This is part of PHP’s intentions of an easy language to learn.

So while your correct, I feel you’ve left out the reasons why it was done that way.

I wish I had more time to post…

This is the first blog on PHP that does not suck…

The fall of PHP? Yes… People have been talking about the fall and demise of PHP for the last 5 years or so but hey – the platform is still going strong and it can’t be that bad if Microsoft has [recently] invested time and dollars in it.

Let me know when you [finally] wake up and see that PHP is a heavy weight in the development world – until then all you are doing is making me laugh (loudly).

@Lucas: I read your post, and well, can’t add much. Let’s just hope that JVM/.NET platforms gain better momentum in the “non-enterprise” market, so we finally don’t have to decide between PHP with 1000′s hosting options or Java/JVM with 10′s…