A PHP internals mailing list thread discussing the proposed Primary Constructors RFC, which introduces a new syntax for declaring class constructors at the top of the class definition. The main debate centers on whether primary constructors should support a body (for initialization/validation logic) or remain body-less as proposed. Rob Landers (RFC author) argues that body-less primary constructors still cover 60-70% of real-world use cases in major frameworks like Laravel and Symfony, and that constructor bodies deserve a separate follow-up RFC due to complexity. Nick Sdot counters that without body support, the feature is incomplete and will be unusable in many situations — particularly with readonly classes and property hooks — and raises broader concerns about PHP accumulating half-finished features that never get completed.
