In the last discussions about pendantic/unnecessary E_STRICT addition in recent PHP releases (5.2 incl.), Richard Quadling pointed us to yet another bad example. Even if his initial example was wrong, I was a bit surprised by the bad and wrong answers, especially from the maintainer of the new date extension. After having sent a correct explanation and a patch to fix for this problem, Derick’s reply was even more surprising:

<q>Stop whining about every code I contribute. It's staying.</q>

I did not know that explaining how works other people code, providing easy solution and patches is considered as whining. No real surprise, not the first time it happens and certainly not the last one.

However here is the test case:

[bash] [pierre@localhost bld]$ ./sapi/cli/php -r 'error_reporting(E_ALL|E_STRICT);print_r(gmmktime());' Strict Standards: gmmktime(): You should be using the time() function instead in Command line code on line 1 [pierre@localhost bld]$ ./sapi/cli/php -r 'error_reporting(E_ALL|E_STRICT);print_r(gmmktime());' Strict Standards: gmmktime(): You should be using the time() function instead in Command line code on line 1 

The behavior of these two functions is well documented, since years. A lot of applications use gmmktime or mktime without arguments, a quick check with Google Code confrims it.

I wonder when developers like him will finally understand what does mean team work and discussions. And why it is vital for project like PHP to keep discussions at a respectfull and technical level. Especially when the topic is part of the core PHP features (date time or OO are parts of the core PHP features).

• gmmktime()
• mktime()
• initial post from Richard Quadling
• One line answer
• Patch to silent mktime/gmmktime