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A PHP developer shares desired improvements for the language, drawing inspiration from Python. Key wishes include bundling Composer with PHP, simplifying extension management by treating them as regular packages, adding native Set objects and operator overloading to the standard library, supporting multi-line arrow functions, implementing first-class Unicode support, separating lists from dictionaries as distinct types, adding list/dictionary comprehensions for cleaner syntax, and improving multi-version management. The author also critiques increasing language complexity around features like readonly/final classes and void return type strictness, arguing for practical simplicity over conceptual purity.

My PHP Wishlist

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PHP Dev

Great article, I agree with all the points.
The two I could also add is generics (Class&lt;T&gt;) and async-await/multithread support.

I want improved composable types, or whatever fancier name, when returning an array of something. I find it cumbersome to write a PHPdoc comment explaining what the array holds

mise (uses asdf) or asdf to manage multiple php versions works very well for development.

Great article! Couldn’t agree more one the <code>void</code> return type, this behavior annoys me all. the. time.

I’d like PHP to become a bit less strict about types again.