Table of Contents

PHP RFC: Consolidate Coding Standards Policy Document

Introduction

This RFC is the follow-up on the Policy Repository RFC. That RFC created the Policies Repository, but made no changes to existing documents. An item under “Future Scope” indicated that in the future these documents would be rewritten into an actual document, instead of a collection of RFCs.

Proposal

This proposal suggests adopting the changes to the Coding Standards and Naming document, and to integrate the CODING_STANDARDS.md file from the php-src repository.

The patch is available at https://github.com/php/policies/pull/11 for review. It has been converted to use BCP 14/RFC 2119 terminology (SHOULD, MUST, etc), mimicking as close as possible the original intended meaning of the text from “Coding Standards and Naming”. Specifically, the original document used “should” a lot, where it really meant MUST. Preliminary review by a select few has tweaked the terms to be as close as possible. The integration of the CODING_STANDARDS.md file followed, and only includes minor changes to the text, again, specifically to use the BCP 14/RFC 2119 terminology. In addition, a separate commit modifies some CODING_STANDARD.md language to document certain current behaviour, which the original document was never updated for, in a specific commit: https://github.com/php/policies/pull/11/commits/f534be73970355c1cffc4be17078795ee5cab5b9

As part of the RFC process, wording in the associated Pull Request can be updated, up until the vote opens. Deviations to currently documented guidelines will remain in a separate commit before merging.

Proposed Voting Choices

2/3rds majority required. The vote runs until January 28th, 16:00 UTC.

Rewrite Coding Standards and Naming Document with Suggested Patch?
Real name yes no
ashnazg (ashnazg)  
bukka (bukka)  
derick (derick)  
galvao (galvao)  
girgias (girgias)  
ilutov (ilutov)  
kalle (kalle)  
kguest (kguest)  
ramsey (ramsey)  
theodorejb (theodorejb)  
Count: 10 0

Patches and Tests

- The patch is at https://github.com/php/policies/pull/11, and includes previous changes to the text as found by early contributors.

References

- The original Policy Repository RFC: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/policy-repository