On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 6:44 PM, Brendan Eich <bren...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 2011, at 5:16 PM, Mark S. Miller wrote:
>
> > Arrow functions:
> >
> > keys: function() {
> > return this.getOwnPropertyNames().filter(
> > (name) -> this.getOwnPropertyDescriptor(name).enumerable );
> > }
>
> This is not giving arrow functions their due, though. Just use => and all
> is well.
>
[...]
> > As fallible programmers, we can only afford a more compact function
> notation for defining functions with lexical "this" -- like block lambdas.
>
> Or =>?
>
> I'm leaning toward block lambdas myself, but I feel the need to play umpire
> here a bit -- arrows need fair play including =>, not just ->.
Hi Brendan, I appreciate the umpire role. You do it well.
I had indeed forgotten that => was part of the arrow function proposal. This
does make it much less likely that Tom would have made the mistake if he'd
been programming in JS-with-arrow-functions. But my real point is, if he had
made the mistake using "->", would we have been more or less likely to catch
it than in the code he wrote using "function"?
When we talk about syntax, we often focus on the difficultly of writing
code, somewhat on the hazards of writing code correctly, and on the
difficulty of reading and comprehending correct code. What this thread
clarified for me is how little we talk about syntax's influence on our
ability to spot problems when reading code, and that we need to focus on
that more.
Presently in JS, when seeing a "this", to understand what it means, the eye
needs to scan backwards for the closest enclosing occurrence of "function"
as a keyword. As this example shows, even this is accident prone. If we
introduce multiple special forms that can introduce a this-rebinding
boundary, where the new ones are easily missed, we make this burden worse.
Is "->" easily missed? (I would guess so.) And if it is, what are we getting
in exchange, and is it worth it?
--
Cheers,
--MarkM
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