James Titcumb

• James wonders why we celebrate a terrorism event on Nov 5th… (02/11/2008 09:25:52)
• James should really have a shower and brush his hair… meh! (02/11/2008 09:27:00)
• James has been busy moving his computer desk to start clearing the spare bedroom for the arrival of baby! (02/11/2008 16:41:11)
• James wonders why his ports ain’t forwarded. (03/11/2008 09:07:33)
• James is 19 weeks today. (03/11/2008 09:21:05)
• James is going to fall asleep in a minute… (03/11/2008 15:56:40)
• James is getting all the pub quiz answers wrong. (03/11/2008 21:42:57)
• James has ALL the Munchkin Booty! (04/11/2008 09:20:17)
• James thinks Selenium IDE is fun… (04/11/2008 14:49:02)
• James is off for dinners now, wooties. (04/11/2008 17:34:36)
• James wants to know if anyone wants Damnation tickets, contact me ASAP! (04/11/2008 21:23:57)
• James isn’t going to Damnation any more. (04/11/2008 22:06:37)
• James is getting on with the reporting malarkey. (05/11/2008 09:07:11)
• James is going to start writing the first of the 4 big queries… argh. (05/11/2008 15:16:16)
• James has done the dishes, clothes, vacuuming and had dinner, all the same night! Now for a shower… (05/11/2008 20:52:19)
• James wants to check out Intrepid Ibex. (06/11/2008 09:12:37)
• James is getting organised early for Christmas this year! (06/11/2008 12:59:40)
• James wishes money grew on trees. (06/11/2008 20:54:13)
• James is going to Stoke tonight - long drive ftl. (07/11/2008 09:55:26)
• James is arrived in Stoke very tired. Off to bed! (07/11/2008 23:33:16)
• James thinks the X Factor result was rubbish. Neither should’ve been in the bottom two. (08/11/2008 22:21:00)

• James hopes Sii has done/is doing well in his run! (26/10/2008 13:14:23)
• James is 18 weeks today. (27/10/2008 09:31:52)
• James is impressed how well Protected is doing this morning… 1000% CTA! (27/10/2008 11:24:05)
• James doesn’t think Hannah would make a good programmer. (27/10/2008 12:43:11)
• James is in lyric writing mode… words. (27/10/2008 23:34:23)
• James has a burning tummy. (28/10/2008 09:54:14)
• James is kicking some CSV ass. (28/10/2008 11:01:37)
• James is going to do some kick ass sonic booming. (28/10/2008 17:35:44)
• James is confused about the clumps of snow on Leafy Lane… (29/10/2008 09:06:43)
• James wants Ezkaton, the new Behemoth EP! (29/10/2008 09:14:43)
• James doesn’t think his computer is running normally. (29/10/2008 11:21:22)
• James wonders what the PHP developers were thinking (or drinking…) (29/10/2008 16:05:37)
• James hopes Chris will be able to get into his house! (29/10/2008 17:03:21)
• James is about to watch Saw V, woot! (29/10/2008 20:22:12)
• James enjoyed Saw V, it was quite pleasant really. (30/10/2008 09:03:25)
• James doesn’t know what to get Hannah for Yuletide. (30/10/2008 18:29:35)
• James is happy it’s the Friday day. (31/10/2008 09:18:38)
• James is going to look after poorly Hannah tonight. (31/10/2008 18:11:34)
• James doesn’t like the assistant manager in the Orange shop in Pompey. (01/11/2008 15:09:51)
• James is babysitting his nephew… Practicing already! (01/11/2008 18:51:43)

As this message states, the new seperator for namespaces in PHP will be a backslash (\). I’ve had a brief skim over the IRC log the message mentions, and the conversation is indeed interesting. Personally, having been converted to a full OOP PHP programmer, I would’ve voted for namespaces only in classes (as classes are all I ever use nowadays…).

Evidently there are too many problems using the Paamayim Nekudotayim due to scope, and static classes and whatnot, but I don’t understand why when real programming languages such as C++ manage it fine. I have to agree with “dmitry”, I think using a backslash is ugly, and double colon is much cleaner.

What does this mean for the PHP community? Well anyone currently using namespaces will have to fix their code, and anyone not using namespaces will have to get used to using the backslash separator. Of course this change is going to ruffle a fair few feathers - people will wonder what on earth possessed them to use the backslash instead of double colon when backslashes are so ugly, and double colon is so… well… standard I suppose.

As this Slashdot post shows:

• Perl

use My::CPAN::Module qw();
my $instance = My::CPAN::Module->new("junk");

• C#

System.Windows.Controls.Listbox box = new System.Windows.Controls.Listbox();
// or
using System.Windows.Controls;
ListBox box = new ListBox();

• C++

ABC::bar();
// or
using namespace ABC;
bar();

• The New PHP

$object_instance = new My\PEAR\Module("myvar");
// or
using My\Pear;
$object_instance = new Module("myvar");

I doubt people will stop using PHP though. I expect people will either not use namespaces (explicitly anyway - technically they’d just be writing in the global namespace), or get used to it. But then, one must think - what if there is a big backlash against this change and PHP is just a bubble waiting to be burst? I doubt that’d happen, but it’s interesting to wonder…

As life passes we get busier and busier. I forget appointments and double book myself. So I’ve started using Google Calendar in an attempt to get organised. So far I’ve found it pretty useful, and it’s such an easy interface.

Using iCal, I can also view my calendar in Outlook at work, and another really cool thing is that I can sync my Nokia 6500 slide with my Google Calendar, using GooSync.

So hopefully I won’t miss a thing…

Click for bigness!