On this particular issue, I'm inclined to agree -- I think we should be
extremely sparing with how many new sigils, if any, we introduce into the
language. You'll notice Brendan has repeatedly said similar things about <| and
.{ for example. Syntax matters.
But I feel like now might be a good time for a reminder (probably belongs in a
FAQ!):
Design is a process. In the beginning, you consider lots of needs and use cases
and you generate lots of ideas. As you go along, you iterate on these ideas to
try to come up with the simplest, most parsimonious, most general-purpose, and
most composable core elements you can find that address as many of these needs
as possible. Later in the process, you start prioritizing, culling, and
polishing.
Generally speaking, during this process, new needs and new issues arise. So
typically this process is actually happening in many parallel strands, each of
which is at a different phase of the design process. Of course, design is a
holistic thing, so they often affect each other, sometimes forcing one thread
that appeared to be stabilizing back into an earlier phase to iterate anew.
TC39 does our design work out in the open. That means everyone gets to see and
participate in all parts of this process. The most common misunderstanding that
arises is that TC39 is on the brink of standardizing on every single idea that
has been considered. However, this has never been and will not be (at least as
long as I'm part of this process) the case. But you can't short-cut the
process. You can't pick the winners until you've let all the ideas run their
course.
Dave
On Oct 6, 2011, at 3:56 PM, John J Barton wrote:
> JavaScript's original C-like syntax used symbols for limited purposes.
> Consequently developers familiar with, for example C and Java, could read
> most of the code and concentrate on the new things. This greatly lowered the
> barrier to entry. While theoretically there is nothing magical about the
> C-like syntax, practically it really helps. (Famous exceptions include of
> course "this", (looks like Java; isn't like Java), and highly nested function
> definitions marching ever rightward).
>
> Recent syntax discussions head in a completely different direction,
> introducing a seemingly large number of new symbols resulting in code that
> isn't readable by current JS, Java, or C devs. Instead of JavaScript they
> will be attempting to read GrawlixScript. I'm skeptical that this direction
> will be welcomed by developers.
>
> jjb
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Douglas Crockford <doug...@crockford.com>
> wrote:
> On 11:59 AM, John J Barton wrote:
> GrawlixScript is the connection I guess.
> No, grawlix is a term of art that can be used to describe some the literal
> syntax proposals.
>
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