Why use ::class only for fully qualified class names?

[Vinai]

The page http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.0/coding-standards/code-standard-php.html states

use PHP 5.5’s ::class keyword when referring to the fully qualified class name outside of that class

Since I'm not sure if that is on purpose or by accident, I didn't open a PR, but I think it makes no sense to only use the ::class constant for full class names and use strings for the rest.

Since the::class always is mapped to a fully qualified class name by the PHP preprocessor, there should be no need to use it only for fully qualified class names. It should be used every time a class name is referenced as a string.

Examples:

Non imported class name:

// Resolves to "\Magento\Path\To\Class"
$this->get(\Magento\Path\To\Class::class);

Imported class name:

use Foo\Bar;

// ... other code

// Resolves to "\Foo\Bar"
$this->get(Bar::class);

Namespace relative class name:

namespace Baz;

// ... other code

// Resolves to "\Baz\Qux"
$this->get(Qux::class);

Import relative class name

use Magento\Framework\Data;

// ... other code

// Resolves to "\Magento\Framework\Data\Helper"
$this->get(Data\Helper::class);

[ghost]

@antonkril Can you comment? Thanks

[ghost]

@Vinai It looks like this will be implemented soon. Does that help?

[Vinai]

Well... it's related, but I opened this issue so the wording in the documentation can be clarified. So the implementation you linked is basically the core team following the recommendation documented here.

[antonkril]

Don't see reasons to use strings for non-full names. Wording should be fixed

[jcalcaben]

I agree and see how the wording can be confusing. @Vinai may I use your examples in our docs for clarification?