On: How to add a new syntactic feature to PHP

[snorkel]

\ was an odd choice, unfortunately reminiscent of MSDOS, but I have to admit that it does help when reading code that a path with \ signals that this is a namespace path where :: is a static class member.

[mgkimsal → snorkel]

Except :: doesn't always indicate a static class member.

parent::foo();

The :: is not indicating that the call to the parent be made statically. $this is a reserved variable in classes - $parent or $super should have been as well.

[encoderer → mgkimsal]

The grandparent has the right sentiment but the wrong language. When you see :: you know you're addressing a specific class and not a namespace.

And since PHP doesn't have any concept of a class-instance there's nothing mucking that up.