[ryanac]

Many people write their PHP views in raw PHP to remove the (albeit small) overhead from a templating system. I think this is where the PHP short open tag syntax gets used the most (I know I use it there a lot), this is because:

<?=$username;?>

(Personal Preference Alert!) Is easier to read, faster to type and easier for designers to handle than:

<?php echo $username;?>

The downside is, if you deploy your code on a server you don't have access to (meaning you can't enable short tags via php.ini) then you'd have to painfully replace every "<?=" with "<?php echo" BY HAND, find and replace is not allowed.

Eventually, there was a big argument over whether short open tag should be removed in PHP6 (it's not), the biggest reasons for removing it (from what I remember) was that it could conflict with the "<?xml" tag and if you don't have access to php.ini or a modern code editor, you're screwed.

The removal of one of these major problems (by forcing short open tag to work regardless of php.ini settings) brings PHP's short open tag one step closer to being loved and admired by everyone, including YOU, so get used to thinking things like this are great.

As far as chained string offsets, who cares! Long live short open tag! (Sorry I couldn't help it.)