[Mahn]

For the record, your first example can be written in this manner with short tags on:

    <a href="<?=$some_url?>">Some link</a>

Which is effectively pretty close to a templating pseudo-syntax.

[smt88]

That's a perfect example of a bad practice that's done for readability in PHP templating.

Short tags are off by default in PHP (and have been for years), so you're losing some portability when you use them in your code. If, for example, someone reinstalls your PHP package and overwrites your config (which is very easy to do), your app suddenly breaks.