Re: SQL99 ARRAY support proposal

On 13 Mar 2003, Greg Stark wrote:

>
> Joe Conway <mail(at)joeconway(dot)com> writes:
>
> > I'm leaning toward implode() and explode() now anyway because split() uses a
> > regex for the delimiter in PHP (and probably Perl), and I was not planning to
> > get that fancy.
>
> PHP isn't exactly an exemplar for great language design.
>
> explode/implode are terribly non-self-descriptive names. Someone seeing them
> for the first time wouldn't really have any clue what they did and would have
> zero chance of guessing their names to find them in an index.
>
> I would suggest join_str() and split_str() if "join" is too sensitive a word
> for an sql language.

I disagree on both your points. I'll not address the first one, but the
use of explode / implode to me was obvious the first time I saw it years
ago. It's used by many other languages than PHP, and is as obvious in
meaning to me as join or split.

In fact, to me, join and split are string functions, not array functions.
explode and implode, otoh, are more obviously array functions.

Here's the short list from 4 pages of google search for explode implode
language -php:

Lotusscript
ML
GIML
Lisp
vbscript
Scheme
ADA
ICI
SML
REX

You're quick to throw out a trollish barb against PHP without any
real discussion as to why it's such a horrible language. I have to say
the quality of code I've seen come out of the PHP development community is
signifigantly better than what I've seen coming out of the Perl community
lately, and often has much better use of OO methodologies and is generally
more easily understood than the equivalent Perl code.

If you don't like PHP, dont use it. If you don't like a proposal has,
argue against that proposal. Please stop trolling against PHP. it's
unsightly and unprofessional and doesn't belong in this list.