Es4-discuss Digest, Vol 3, Issue 2

[Andrew Dupont]

On May 2, 2007, at 2:37 PM, Kris Zyp wrote:
> Also, having function/methods as slots that can be swapped with  
> values seems like a fundamental concept of ES and its simplicity  
> and consistency. It would seem bizarre to me to set toString to a  
> primitive and expect anything but an error when coercion tried to  
> convert the object to string. ES3 throws an error, and it seems  
> totally logical that it should.

I agree with this. My example is willfully boneheaded for the sake of  
brevity.  Key safety is an issue when *arbitrary* keys are set -- for  
instance, the situation described here [1].

Peter's point is illuminating, I think -- we're really just looking  
for a better UI for Hash.set and Hash.get.  ES3's object/hash duality  
is convenient, but I'm willing to store my keys and values some other  
way if it means that I can get key safety.  Introducing a new  
operator (like "#.") instead of Hash.set/Hash.get would minimize the  
pain of giving up this duality, especially if said operator can be  
overridden.

[1] http://www.andrewdupont.net/2006/05/18/javascript-associative- 
arrays-considered-harmful/#comment-543


Cheers,
Andrew