title: Valid use cases for at-sign in php
body: <p>The at sign is used to hide error messages. As far as I see, there is absolutely no use case or excuse for using it.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>You can hide errors in production by changing php ini settings while still outputting errors to log files</li>
  <li>@-sign makes it difficult for fellow programmers to identify where the problem is</li>
  <li>Error messages are your friends when you are developing. Find errors fast and fix them</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>A friend of mine just spent a couple of hours trying to find out why the software works on one system and not on another. This would have taken about 10 seconds if the library developer wouldn't have used @-sign.</p>
  
  <p>Am I close-minded when I say that there is absolutely no value to @-sign, is there a valid case?</p>