Binary data (ByteArray/ByteVector) proposal on public-script-coord

[David-Sarah Hopwood]

Oliver Hunt wrote:
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 4:01 PM, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
>> Charles Jolley wrote:
>>> This looks like a good approach.  I wonder if the Data/DataBuilder
>>> distinction could be handled better by using the Object.freeze()
>>> semantics.  Even if the browser does not support freezing in the general
>>> sense yet, you could borrow the ideas for data.
>>>
>>> Probably the wrong API names, but here is the basic idea:
>>>
>>> Data.prototype.copy()
>>>  -> returns a mutable form of the Data object
>>>
>>> Data.prototype.freeze() or Data.freeze(aDataObject)
>>>  -> makes the Data object frozen if it is not frozen already
>>>
>>> Data.prototype.frozenCopy()
>>>  -> returns the data object but pre-frozen.  For Data object's already
>>> frozen can return "this"
>>>
>>> Data.prototype.frozen - true when frozen, false otherwise.
>>
>> I don't know why we wouldn't just use Object.freeze. It is not
>> unreasonable to require support for the ES5 APIs as a prerequisite
>> for the Data type.
> 
> I disagree here -- i believe mutable vs. immutable data is different
> from unfrozen and frozen objects [...]

Why? What would the hypothetical Data.prototype.freeze do that would be
different to applying Object.freeze to a Data object?

> (though i agree that the function names
> freeze and frozen are just asking for problems in conjunction with ES5
> :D ).  There are plenty of times where I would want to provide immutable
> data (the UA sharing content, etc), but i may still want to modify the
> object itself.

Oh, you mean that you want *read-only* Data objects backed by a mutable
array. That is not the same thing as an immutable (or "frozen") Data object.

-- 
David-Sarah Hopwood  ⚥  http://davidsarah.livejournal.com

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