Re: [PHP-LANG] Approaching the First Draft [of a language spec]

> Thus, what we need is a descriptive specification, rather than a defining
> specification.  Much like the ANSI C++ spec is or at least used to be
> useless because not a single compiler in existence implemented it (and is
> thus rather useless for practical purposes), defining a spec that is not
> backed up by the existing implementation would be useless for end users.

    Well, C++ has been basically reinvented during the
    standardization process. I don't see this happening with PHP.
    The base for this specification will be PHP 3/the Zend
    engine, so you don't really need to fear that the Zend engine
    and the specification will be incompatible.

    I'm not sure how the end-user will be able to benefit from a
    list of syntactical rules. Can you elaborate what you have in
    mind?

    - Sascha