substitutes for arguments and arguments.callee in ECMAScript 5

[Juriy Zaytsev]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen at wirfs-brock.com>
 wrote:

> Just a couple additional points to make sure that Brendan and I playing
> tag-team aren't sowing further confusion about this topic:
>
>  ...subscribe(function func() {...})
>
> according to the ES standard is a different construct from either
>
> var foo = function() { ... }
>
> or
>
> function foo() { ... }
>
>
> In particularly, the latter two introduce a declaration for the name "func"
> into the surrounding scope so it can be referenced anywhere in that scope.
>  The first function expression form introduces a declaration for "func" that
> is supposed to only be visible from within the {...} function body. Also,
> the function expression form has a well-defined meaning anywhere including
> in the compound statement blocks such as if-statements.  The meaning of the
> latter two declaration forms are not defined by the standard when they occur
> within compound statement blocks.  What they do, depends upon the browser.
>
> IE, prior to IE9, didn't conform to the standard for function expressions
> and makes the name "func" visible in the surrounding scope.
>


There's a little more to it.

IE<9 actually creates 2 function objects when parsing NFE; not just leaks
identifier to the enclosing scope. It might seem irrelevant at first, but if
you consider that something like `var f = function g(){ ... } ` will result
in creation of 2 distinct function objects bound to `f` and `g`, it's easy
to imagine how this could lead to all kinds of lovely bugs (e.g. when
assigning to a property of function object; and having that property on `f`
but not `g`, or vice versa).

[...]

-- 
kangax
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