AFAICT both Haxe and AS3 consistently put types on the right, including argument declarations. Other languages consistently put it on the left. Most languages make a choice like that; PHP mixes things up a bit.

But then, it wouldn't be PHP if it was too consistent ;).

To be fair, it's not the same as an argument type. The type of `foo()` isn't int, it's function. You're not specifying the type of the thing itself, merely the type of what it returns. Though this seems to have been lost on the creators of C. ;)

sure but AS3, Go Haxe and others ARE consistant

    function foo(a:int,b:string):bool{}

in PHP this will be

    function foo(int a,string b):bool{}

Putting the type first for parameters and last for return values seems like exactly the same kind of inconsistency that has already earned PHP plenty of criticism. Personally I kind of like the Pascal style, I use the C style all day every day, but mixed style seems like the worst option available.

Rust also has this syntax if I remember correctly, for parsing reason

Go also has a similar syntax (except the colon)