Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Duration class

On Thu, Jul 2, 2026, at 1:30 PM, Tim Düsterhus wrote:

>> negated() would be consistent with the "ed means return new" pattern 
>> found in many languages, so I would strongly recommend following that 
>> pattern.
>
> Yes. The only issue I'm having with that is that it doesn't trivially 
> transfer to addition and subtraction, which technically would be an 
> inconsistency in the API. Maybe that's okay, particularly given that 
> both Java and JavaScript have the -ed for everything exception addition 
> and subtraction, but I nevertheless want to have the discussion.

From what I've seen in my collections research, the -ed suffix is used in cases where it's not obvious from the method name.  (For some definition of obvious.)  For instance, append() tends to be an operate-in-place, and concat() produces-new.  But neither have an -ed on them.  Things like sort[ed]() or reverse[d]() do, and often have both versions on the same object.

So I think a reasonable guideline is "if it's self-evident, don't bother; if it's confusing, use -ed for the return-new immutable one."  For some squishy definition of self-evident.  In this case, it feels self-evident to me that add() will return-new, as that's how I am used to addition working.  incrementBy() I would expected to modify-in-place.  negate() is potentially confusing as it could go either way, so I would recommend the -ed suffix.

--Larry Garfield