[$] PHP struggles with attributes syntax

PHP 8.0 is on the horizon, and the project has imposed a feature-freeze for the release. There's one exception to the feature-freeze, though: the new attributes syntax. An attribute is syntactical metadata for PHP code, identical to what is called an "annotation" in other languages. Even though attributes have been voted on multiple times by the community, major contributor and creator of XDebug Derick Rethans threw a wrench into the works days before the feature-freeze by challenging the current syntax. The ensuing discussion lead to the fourth attributes proposal for the year, with a special feature-freeze exception being made by release manager Sara Golemon. This exception gives Rethans one more opportunity to convince the community to change how attributes work up to the Beta 3 release, scheduled for September 3.