Do you think it would be a good idea to implement a certain character sequence for comments that get stripped out when uploading over FTP?

Like, you'd write

<?php //* test *//

in a file, and when you upload it to a FTP server, it'd just read

<?php

The comment would remain stored locally though.

Advantages:

* You can use extensive commenting without having to worry about the PHP files getting really large and slowing down the server.
* If other people have access to the PHP code you uploaded (because you did commission work and they own the website, for example - they could grab your code and sell it on), without the comments it's worth *a lot* less.

Disadvantages: None I could see. Upload might be a tad slower on large files because of replacing the file, but that's something I can live with. Besides, it would be an optional feature.

Thoughts?

Why not to use php encoder if you're afraid that code could be stolen?
Honestly, those bad guys do not need your comments to be successfull with their sales...
Regarding file size, I think it does not really matter if you use SFTP with compresstion turned on.

The one PHPEncoder I found is at Freelock and there it says:

[07-08-2004] Some SERIOUS issues found in current FreeLock design. DONT USE FOR SENSIBLE TASKS!!
Please stay tuned as we are working on a totally new methodology for it.

Looks like a dead project?

And I think that the PHP file gets larger and thus takes longer to parse.

YEp, it looks like a dead.

Also, doesn't a lot of comments make the PHP code take longer to parse? Without comments, the files would get smaller and faster to parse. I don't really need anything drastic, but I write quite a few comments, and without them, understanding the code pretty much takes as long as if you rewrote it yourself. Variable renaming and such would be an overkill and hard for you to do, whereas stripping comments if something your parser pretty much could do already anyway.