Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Deprecations for PHP 8.6

> I have updated the RFC to include a deprecation proposal for the
> `list()` construct.
>
> ref: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecations_php_8_6#deprecate_the_list_construct
>

Hi Seifeddine,
I understand the reasoning behind freeing up the `list` keyword and
having a canonical way to destructure an array. However, I would argue
that the scale of this BC break far outweighs the benefits.

A quick GitHub code search shows 7 million[^1] hits for "list(" in PHP
files. If we deprecate and eventually drop `list()` in PHP 9, we can
safely assume that a large portion of existing code will fail to
compile in PHP 9.

Furthermore, the documentation for `list()` offers no hint that `[]`
is preferred over `list()`, and I would also argue that there is no
reason to prefer one over the other. Code-style guides can dictate a
project's or library's conventions, but we should take a more
conservative approach if we really have a strong technical reason to
prefer one syntax over another.

Based on the RFC text, aside from freeing up the `list` keyword for
potential future use, I do not see a sufficiently strong technical
reason to deprecate `list()`.

Thank you.

[^1]: https://github.com/search?q=%22list%28%22+language%3APHP+&type=code