Adding new functions and alternative syntax has a long-term cost for PHP and the projects that use the language. I don't see much value in the new features of PHP5 announced on https://www.php.net/releases/8.5/en.php
- URI extension: there was already the internal `parse_url()` which was imperfect, and alternative libraries that were RFC 3986 compliant. An official extension will bring speed, but now there will be 2 official ways to parse URLs.
- The pipe operator is a matter of taste. In the release notes, the new code is more verbose, because it defines anonymous functions. This alternative syntax means keeping a consistent code style will be harder.
- The update of "clone" replaces 2 lines of code in some cases. Unless I misunderstood, it's a very minor change.
- The #Discard/void will replace the similar feature from static analyzers.
- Closures in constants is one of the 2 features that bring more than an alternative syntax. It's one more little step toward a preprocessor. But I'm not thrilled about the future #attributes assigned with complex closures.
- cURL persistent handles are a real performance feature, because curl_init() is costly.
- array_first() is a minor syntax-sugar. In a project of 100k+ lines of PHP, I probably could use it twice or thrice. Was it worth a global function?
- URI extension: there was already the internal `parse_url()` which was imperfect, and alternative libraries that were RFC 3986 compliant. An official extension will bring speed, but now there will be 2 official ways to parse URLs.
- The pipe operator is a matter of taste. In the release notes, the new code is more verbose, because it defines anonymous functions. This alternative syntax means keeping a consistent code style will be harder.
- The update of "clone" replaces 2 lines of code in some cases. Unless I misunderstood, it's a very minor change.
- The #Discard/void will replace the similar feature from static analyzers.
- Closures in constants is one of the 2 features that bring more than an alternative syntax. It's one more little step toward a preprocessor. But I'm not thrilled about the future #attributes assigned with complex closures.
- cURL persistent handles are a real performance feature, because curl_init() is costly.
- array_first() is a minor syntax-sugar. In a project of 100k+ lines of PHP, I probably could use it twice or thrice. Was it worth a global function?