Just announced something at OSCON that's probably going to get a lot of folks talking and making assumptions, so before things get out of hand, I want to provide some context. We (As in PHP) have been talking about making a spec for the PHP language for a LONG time. With PHPNG around the corner, the need for a formal spec is even more important so that we can reliably ensure that PHP.Next matches PHP 5.6's behavior as much as possible. Meanwhile, other implementations of PHP (like HHVM) should be as spec compliant as possible so that we don't see the language bifurcate. To that end, we (as in Facebook), have been putting together a formal language spec for PHP (using PHP 5.6 as the source of truth) along with an additional conformance test suite (which compliments Zend/tests). We've talked to some engine folks along the way to get feedback and make version 1 as good as it can be, and we're really close to releasing it (aiming for next week). Note that this document only covers the language syntax and not the standard runtime library. This document is meant for PHP, and PHP should be the steward of it going forward, so we (as in PHP) should start looking at good ways to keep it up to date and revise it over time. As a sneak-peak, uploaded a very small section so that you get an idea for what the document looks like overall. http://dl.hhvm.com/resources/PHPSpec-SneakPeak.pdf Tons of love, -Sara P.S. - Apologies if you got this twice. But the version I sent with an attachment looks like it got stripped by the list server.



