PHP 8.6 Deprecation Bundle Sparks Debate Over Impact Data and Array Syntax
The PHP internals community is actively debating Gina P. Banyard's annual PHP 8.6 deprecations bundle, with a vote expected to open no earlier than July 21, 2026 after a mandatory 14-day cooldown. A heated exchange erupted over potentially deprecating array() syntax, with concerns raised that such a change could affect a large portion of WordPress core and its plugins, though the actual proposal targets list() rather than array(). Contributor Rowan Tommins threatened to vote against 27 of 35 proposals citing insufficient impact analysis, while Banyard declined to produce metrics without an agreed methodology. Juliette Reinders Folmer offered to generate real-world impact data using PHPCompatibility for roughly 25 of the 36 items, helping to ease tensions. Separately, the Time\Duration RFC for PHP 8.6 was declared feature-complete, with key design decisions finalized including method naming conventions and restrictions on negative constructor arguments.
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