Minimalist Classes

[Kam Kasravi]

On Nov 2, 2011, at 11:29 AM, Brendan Eich <brendan at mozilla.com> wrote:

> On Nov 2, 2011, at 11:17 AM, David Bruant wrote:
> 
>>> See my reply to Kam. We're not sugaring instance-private ivars. I am proposing something we agreed to in Nov. 2008: sugaring class-private ivars.
>> Ok, that's what I was missing. What were the rationale? use cases?
> 
Doesn't the latest harmony class proposal define private within the constructor? I assume this proposal would supersede the Nov 2008 meeting 
Grammar pasted below:

CallExpression : ... private ( AssignmentExpression ) ConstructorElement : ... PrivateVariableDefinition PrivateVariableDefinition : private ExportableDefinition
> The rationale is that most mainstream OO languages with the most users support class-private not instance-private ivars. Sorry, Smalltalkers!
> 
In java one cannot access a private declaration in this way without defining a protected getter/setter for example.
 
> Use cases are all around us in JS today, using public properties. Refactoring to private should not require rewriting to add getter/setter method, etc.
But if you are locking down a private var, isn't refactoring implied by your statement 'avoid ... hostile attacks, on private data'.
Private instance vars would, for example, prevent the following:

class Account {
private balance = 0;
constructor(balance) {
@balance = balance;
}
compare(otheraccount) {
if(otheraccount at balance > 1000000) {
@balance += --otheraccount at balance;
}
if(@balance > otheraccount at balance) {
return 1;
} else if(@balance < otheraccount at balance) {
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
}
> 
> 
>>> You can make instance-private ivars yourself in the constructor using Name.create, and go to town. Knock yourself out! (I mean that in a good way, at least from where I sit :-P).
>> Hmm... Are you sure you can implement instance-private variables with no
>> leak?
> 
> You'd need to use the closure pattern:
> 
> class BnD {
>   constructor(x) {
>     const my_x = Name.create('x');
>     this[my_x] = x;
>     this.method1 = function (...) {...};
>     ...
>     this.methodN = function (...) {...};
>   }
> }
> 
> The method1..N functions can use my_x, no one else can.

In Crockford terminology, method1..N are 'privileged' functions, but come at the cost of memory allocation per object.
Does class-private ivars enable the private names proposal? Eg, is there an implicit dependency?
> 
> /be
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