Allow me to clarify. I don't mean that it's confusing or ambiguous. What I mean is that the only place people have seen the backslash in their language and many other places is as an escape operator. This means that the backslash - when seen alone - was most likely to be an escape character.
When scanning code, you often use "landmarks" to find your way about. This is why indentation is so useful. But this is also used on a smaller level. When seeing a comma, you usually expect to find something else after it, just because that's what you're used to.
The same can hold for backslashes. Personally, I "feel" that backslashes are an escape character to such a degree that to see one without an escaped item after it, feels like a syntax error.
Now, I'm not arguing that this is a terrible choice of the PHP folks - at least we finally get namespaces - but I do understand how some people find the backspace an irritating choice.
When scanning code, you often use "landmarks" to find your way about. This is why indentation is so useful. But this is also used on a smaller level. When seeing a comma, you usually expect to find something else after it, just because that's what you're used to.
The same can hold for backslashes. Personally, I "feel" that backslashes are an escape character to such a degree that to see one without an escaped item after it, feels like a syntax error.
Now, I'm not arguing that this is a terrible choice of the PHP folks - at least we finally get namespaces - but I do understand how some people find the backspace an irritating choice.