On 06.08.2025 at 06:21, Theodore Brown wrote:
> I just analyzed the top 1500 Composer packages for a couple more of the proposed syntax
> deprecations, and found the following:
>
> ## Deprecate non-standard cast names:
> 197 non-standard casts in 25 unique packages.
>
> ## Deprecate backticks as an alias for shell_exec:
> 49 backtick operator executions in 10 unique packages.
>
> I find it ironic that the more widely used of these proposals has the least opposition to
> deprecate (100% in favor so far), while deprecating semicolon-terminated case statements
> (which has zero usages in the top 1500 packages) currently has more opposition than either
> of these.
I would not necessarily expect backtick operators to be used in top
Composer packages. That is likely a feature used by some private shell
scripts; maybe sometimes quick and dirty through-away/ use-once scripts.
Christoph