title: Why are "echo" short tags permanently enabled as of PHP 5.4?
body: <p>Even the official documentation used to tell us that <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/200640/are-php-short-tags-acceptable-to-use">PHP "short tags" (<code>&lt;? /*...*/ ?&gt;</code>) are "bad"</a>. However, <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.phpmode.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">since PHP 5.4, the <code>echo</code> variety <code>&lt;?= /*...*/ ?&gt;</code> is permanently enabled regardless of the <code>short_open_tag</code> setting</a>.</p>
  
  <p><em>What's changed?</em></p>
  
  <p>Even if they were previously discouraged solely due to the unpredictable nature of whether <code>short_open_tag</code> is enabled on a shared hosting platform, surely that argument doesn't go away just because some subset of hosts will be running PHP 5.4?</p>
  
  <p>Arguably this change to the language doesn't inherently signify a change in the recommendation that we should nonetheless avoid "short tags", but if they've gone to the trouble it would certainly seem like the PHP devs no longer "hate" them so much. Right?</p>
  
  <p><em>The only logical conclusion I can draw at this time is that there must be some objective rationale for the introduction of this change in PHP 5.4.</em></p>
  
  <p><em>What is it?</em></p>