[rty32]

It could be much easier for user defined functions to collide with standard functions, especially when it happens unintentionally.

Someone else creates a function named array_something in the namespace. Maybe it already exists in earlier versions, maybe it happens to collide with one of the four introduced in 8.4. This function is accessible to you in the current scope. Now, you try to call the function like the way it is defined in the standard library. You get a very confusing error and spend 10 minutes trying to figure if it is you or PHP that is hallucinating. Turns out you have been inadvertently calling that other user defined function. The other user may be completely unaware of the fact that they created a function with naming collision.

To combat this, you need strong IDE help including static type checking, which is not always there for everybody. And it still doesn't help with cases where the user defined function collides with a new standard function.

Most "modern" languages have very few built-in functions in the global namespace. Another example is Go. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe there is 0 function in global namespace in Rust. println! exists but that's a macro. In other words, the example I mentioned just never happens with these languages.

Not to mention the long list of junk you see in IDE when you type "array_".

I guess you haven't written much MATLAB.

[nneonneo]

Rust namespaces everything in the standard library to std:: or core::, and has a clear distinction between them.

However, it does implicitly include the entirety of the std::prelude namespace (https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/prelude/index.html) into every source file, as well as including every macro directly exported under std:: (including println!). This enables the unprefixed use of things like Result, Option, Some, Send, etc.

The prelude and std:: macros are the closest thing that Rust has to a global namespace, and even they can be disabled in crates that specifically request it.

[alganet]

This would be a valid point 20 years ago.

PHP functions can be namespaced. I can just write myLib\array_find, otherLib\array_find. You choose what implementation you want when importing. IDE will pick the correct one.

So, zero chances of collision.

[rty32]

Read my comment and all previous comments again.

Don't write such meaningless words and waste your and other people's time when you don't even understand what people are talking about.

[alganet]

Your previous comment makes little sense and your reply is just angry and explains nothing.

A tool to avoid collision was introduced decades ago. This tool was made proeminent by the language and the ecosystem (PHP-FIG, frameworks, books, popular PHP celebrities).

You literally have to had stopped programming PHP more than a decade ago to not understand namespaced functions.

https://phptherightway.com/#namespaces

This problem of collision was seen miles ahead, and people were gently introduced to the idea that the global namespace belongs to PHP builtins and you should not pollute it even further.

I would say it is consensus for the PHP community that if your code broke because you defined array_filter globally before 8.4, then your code sucks and you don't know PHP.