Let me clarify these a little for you:

#42118 - There was no type hinting at the time, in fact it is just being introduced now with PHP 7.
#41948 - E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR is an error, not an exception, but it could have been caught with a catch block if ErrorException + set_error_handler() was used.
#44565 - The example not working was because &$obj->method() means $obj->method() returns a string, that is then written to a temp string with, but you cannot reference a temp string so that is why you cannot write to that context. If the method return value was intended to have a return value that was going to be a refence, then the method signature should be declared as such and the usage context have been different.

As for the issue you stated: "Catchable fatal error:  Argument 1 passed to my_function() must be an instance of string, string given" does not make sense.  While I understand that it may not be crystal clear for all, then keep in mind that PHP supports objects and primitive types, objects are "instances" and primitives are well, just primitives.

But there is good news for you, as of PHP7 we have scalar type declarations (and even return type hinting).

We are always open for PR's on Github if you feel like you can improve the error message.

> #42118 - There was no type hinting at the time, in fact it is just being introduced now with PHP 7.

HUH?

brian@desktop ~ $ php -r 'class myobj {}; class myobj2{}; function foo(myobj $foo) {}; foo(new myobj);foo(new myobj2);'
PHP Catchable fatal error:  Argument 1 passed to foo() must be an instance of myobj, instance of myobj2 given, called in Command line code on line 1 and defined in Command line code on line 1
brian@desktop ~ $ php --version
PHP 5.6.7-1 (cli) (built: Mar 24 2015 12:30:15) 

Notice there was no error when pasing new myobj, only new myobj2.

There is type hinting in PHP for classes and has been for quite some time.  I haven't written PHP in years and there was type hinting when I was using it.  The reason for the error message is that 'string' is considered a primitive and type hinting only works for classes.  If there was no type hinting as you claim, there should have been a completely different error message, probably a parse error.

> #41948 - E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR is an error, not an exception, but it could have been caught with a catch block if ErrorException + set_error_handler() was used.

I don't think that's actually true.  You could handle it with an error handler, but not a "catch block."  Even if you were correct, SAY that in the error message.  Maybe it should be called "HANDLEABLE_FATAL_ERROR."

etc etc etc.

All of your comments, I'm not claiming these errors are invalid (even though some of your responses are factually incorrect).  I'm pointing out that the error MESSAGES are not helpful to the programmer.  Explaining why the error messages are valid is not a counter argument to their lack of clarity of expressiveness.

> We are always open for PR's on Github if you feel like you can improve the error message.

Claiming I can fix these problems myself doesn't mean the bug report is invalid.  Even if I or someone else were to submit a pull request, shouldn't they be submitting it against some open bug?  What is your reason  closing this ticket?