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Some things I'd like to fix:

    Drop the dollar
    Use + for str concat
    Use . for class members
    Use . for dicts 
    Use . for namespaces
    Use : for key:value pairs
    Fix needles and haystacks
    Use camelCase for functions
    Use arrays and dicts literals
    Use list genereators
    Use request and response objects
    Objectify strings, lists and dicts
While most of it is syntactic sugar, this will solve 90% of the problems for 90% of the people.

Feel free to add yours.



So, basically make it javascript. I'm a long-time PHP developer, but I'd very much like that. Someday I'll have to learn node.js...


That's the thing. Once you have "fixed" PHP, you're left with a brand new language that few people know, won't run your existing code, isn't included in Linux distributions or hosting packages, have no books about it and no answers on StackOverflow.

Of course these things will all happen in time if the fixed version takes hold. But if you're willing to throw out PHP and start anew, you can have all of the above right now by learning Node, Rails, Django, etc.

I think the comment above about needing a Jeremy Ashkenas (that is, a CoffeeScript for PHP) is the only realistic way for a "fixed" PHP to succeed. There needs to be a smooth transition, and a FixedPHP-to-PHP5 compiler could provide it.


Here is my list:

- Stop trying to turn PHP into another language. Millions of developers are perfectly fine with its syntax, deal with it.




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