alt Hacker NewsSo, PHP started off as a loosely typed language, then got types... and now they want to implement generics to have more loosely typed code? But as I understand it, types are still optional, so you can still use untyped variables for "generic" code? I'm probably missing something here, is it because of performance concerns? Or the edge case of absolutely wanting strongly typed PHP throughout (except for the part where they want generics)?
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> they want to implement generics to have more loosely typed code
That's a weird way to think about generics. Any class using generics effectively functions as a version of the class where the types are explicitly written out in all places. Instead of writing out one version of the class for every generic type, you write it out once and say which version you want to use at instantiation. You lose no safety, it's purely cosmetic and quality of life.
Generics are not equivalent to loose types.
Today, the vast majority of commercial PHP projects are developed enforcing the use of strong types by static analyzers like PHPStan in the CI pipeline, and having the strict_types declaration set.
As a community, we've seen enough untyped PHP spaghetti code in the early 2000s and never want to go back there.