On Nov 11, 2010, at 11:30 AM, Dmitry A. Soshnikov wrote:
> OTOH, negative indices, are even not array indices. I.e.
>
> var a = [1,2];
> a[-1] = 0;
> print(a); // 1,2
> print(a.length); // 2
>
> From this viewpoint -- for what are they? Seems again, `-n` notations for
> arrays and strings is useful as a "from the end"-sugar. So now I may propose
> it.
They're property names, what you're suggesting would be a fairly dramatic
change in behaviour and I would be concerned about it causing site breakages.
I can easily imagine code that did:
var someArray = ..;
var i = someArray.length;
while(v = someArray[--i]) { .. do something... }
Which would now be wrong.
Likewise bugs that lead to code doing a[-1]=foo; would change from being "safe"
to modifying the content of the actual array values.
I'm sure I've had this discussion before, the fundamental problem is that ES
does not really distinguish between dot and bracket property access, whereas
afaik python does (i don't know about ruby).
--Oliver
>
> On 11.11.2010 21:26, Dmitry A. Soshnikov wrote:
>>
>> Actually, I'm still not sure myself whether I want this semantics in JS for
>> arrays. I remember one case (some simple math task) when I was needed a[-1]
>> and was glad that JS supports it -- I used `for (var i = -2; i < 10; i++)
>> a[i]`, and it was very elegant decision at that moment.
>>
>> There is also one lack (?) with decreasing counter loop (brought in
>> discussion on Twitter), e.g.:
>>
>> var a = [1, 2, 3], i = a.length;
>>
>> while (v = a[--i]) {
>> print(i, v)
>> }
>>
>> that brings: 2,3 1,2 0,1 -1,3 -2,2 -3,1
>>
>> i.e. double enumeration with this semantics. But formally, it's not a bug,
>> but a feature -- both Python and Ruby have the same semantics in such a
>> `while` case.
>>
>> Another reason I'm still no sure about a[-1] is that JS (in contrast with
>> the same Python and Ruby) has no stratification of normal properties -- via
>> dot notation, and subscription properties -- via square bracket notation. I
>> mentioned this in previous mentioned thread. And from this viewpoint,
>> probably it's not good that o[-1] means exactly "-1" and a[-1] means
>> a[`last`]. Don't know.
>>
>> Want both -- and (probably sometimes needed) "-1", and sugar for [`last`].
>>
>> Though, repeat, since ES5 brought special semantics for subscription of
>> strings, i.e. "abc"[0] is "a", maybe it worth to make another sugar for
>> arrays too? Btw, if yes, it will touch strings too.
>>
>> Dmitry.
>>
>> On 11.11.2010 13:24, Dmitry A. Soshnikov wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> How likely (based on backward compats) that Harmony will support Pythonic
>>> negative indices for arrays? Ruby supports them too. There was previous
>>> indirect mention, were Brendan agreed that Harmony needs such a semantics
>>> for arrays, however, that discussion wasn't formed to something concrete.
>>>
>>> Recently, there was the same discussion in CoffeeScript's tracker --
>>> https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/issues#issue/827 . Since Coffee
>>> uses JavaScript as its lower level, there were proposals to provide an
>>> alternative syntax for this (e.g. a[* - 1], where * means a.length,
>>> allowing this feature to be generic), though, I'm not sure this exact
>>> syntax is needed for ES. However, I mentioned there, that if Harmony itself
>>> will support this feature in Python's/Ruby's semantics, then Coffee won't
>>> need an alternative thing.
>>>
>>> Currently, this feature may be easily implemented using proxies:
>>> https://github.com/DmitrySoshnikov/es-laboratory/blob/master/examples/array-negative-indices.js
>>> (example),
>>> https://github.com/DmitrySoshnikov/es-laboratory/blob/master/src/array-negative-indices.js
>>> (implementation), however possibly it's good to have this semantics for
>>> objects with [[Class]] "Array" as native. I think it's acceptable, since we
>>> already have such alternative semantics for String objects.
>>>
>>> Toughs?
>>>
>>> Dmitry.
>>
>
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