Frameworks have started to adopt Closures for callbacks, utilizing the 'Closure' typehint. That has an unfortunate sideeffect of requiring already-existing-methods to be wrapped into a closure calling that method. Additionally, the PHP documentation on closures indicates that the “Closure” class is considered an implementation detail, and may be subject to change in the future -- which means that typehinting on Closure may break in the future.
Introducing a callable typehint.
The typehint would allow a string with a function name, an array composed of classname/obj+methodname, and a closure.
callback is callable, the opposite could not be true. A string, or a closure, is callable, but the string is not a callback.
The documentations already use `array` hinting when a function expects an array, even though it does not type hint on it. The documentations already use `callable` hiting when a function expects a callable instance, even though it does not type hint on it.
Furthermore we already have a function called is_callable(), and this new feature will share its implementation.
Introducing a different name (i..e callback) will therefore only create more inconsistencies and confusion.
The callable typehint reuses the is_callable() logic.
Only null initialize is allowed, making it consistent with classname typehinting.