Am 10.05.2011 09:44, schrieb Ferenc Kovacs:

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Chad Fulton<chad...@gmail.com>

From the user-end perspective, what I don't understand is this:

What is the goal of having Annotations embedded in PHP? To nail down a common syntax? To provide an interface for meta-information on a class?

Why can't this be PHP code? Why should I have to learn a whole new kind of syntax? We already have a common syntax (PHP interface) for this as well as an interface (static Class-functions/Object-methods).

To explain what I mean, I'll use the example provided in the RFC. Could anyone please explain the advantages of having "passive" annotations over "active" PHP Code.

<Entity("users")> class User { <Column("integer")> <Id> <GeneratedValue("AUTO")> protected $id;

// ...

<ManyToMany("Phonenumber")> protected $Phonenumbers; }

*** Example ***

class User implements EntityAnnotation { protected $id; protected $Phonenumbers;

public function getEntityAnnotation(){ return new User_EntityAnnotation(); } }

class User_EntityAnnotation { public function getEntityName(){ return 'users'; }

public function getColumnInfo($property){ switch( $property ) { case 'id': return array( 'column'=>'integer', 'isPrimary'=>true, 'autoIncrement'=>true );

case 'Phonenumbers': return array( 'manytomany'=>'Phonenumber' ); } } }