return when desugaring to closures

[Waldemar Horwat]

Brendan Eich wrote:
> On Oct 15, 2008, at 2:36 PM, Waldemar Horwat wrote:
> 
>> There is no such thing as a "let expression".
> 
> Let expressions 
> <http://developer.mozilla.org/en/New_in_JavaScript_1.7#let_expressions> in 
> JS1.7 (Firefox 2+), based on the ES4 proposal 
> <http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=proposals:block_expressions>. 
> ES3-ish grammar:
> 
> /LetExpression /*:*
> *      let*/ /*( VariableDeclarationList/ /*) [lookahead ∉ 
> {*{*}] AssignmentExpression**
> 
> produced from PrimaryExpression.

That's not a valid grammar.  You can't have an AssignmentExpression terminating a PrimaryExpression.  It leads to trouble such as:

let a = b + c

being interpreted as both:

(let a = b) + c

and:

let a = (b + c)


>> It's mandatory because the grammar and semicolon insertion rules say 
>> so.  Btw, to properly terminate a lambda expression you'd need *two* 
>> semicolons.  Here's why one would be insufficient:
>>
>> f = lambda(x) x;
>> (a + b) && c;
>>
>> would parse the body of the lambda as the expression "x;", the "(a + 
>> b)" as an argument to the lambda, and the rest as applying to the 
>> result of calling the lambda.  What you'd want to write instead would be:
>>
>> f = lambda(x) x;;
> 
> Expression closures 
> <http://developer.mozilla.org/en/New_in_JavaScript_1.8#Expression_closures> in 
> JS1.8 (Firefox 3+) do not have this problem. Using ES3's notation:
> 
> /FunctionDeclaration /*:*
> *      function */Identifier /*( */FormalParameterList//opt /*) 
> */FunctionBody/
> /FunctionExpression /*:*
> *      function */Identifier//opt /*( */FormalParameterList//opt /*) 
> */FunctionBody/
> /FormalParameterList /*:*
> /      Identifier/
> /      FormalParameterList /*, */Identifier/
> /FunctionBody /*:*
> /      { *SourceElements */*}*
> *      */[lookahead ∉ {*{*}] AssignmentExpression/

That's not a valid grammar.  For example,

  a = function(x) b+c

can parse as, among other things:

  a = (function(x) b) + c

which is probably not what you want.

    Waldemar