An array destructing specification choice

[Allen Wirfs-Brock]

On Nov 7, 2011, at 8:23 AM, Andreas Rossberg wrote:

> On 7 November 2011 17:07, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen at wirfs-brock.com> wrote:
>>>  let {x} = 666
>>> 
>>> which will be refuted, by raising a TypeError.
>> 
>> No,
>> 
>> It does ToObject(666) and then looks for the "x" property of the resulting wrapper object.
> 
> Ouch, really?  I don't see that in the proposal
> (http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:destructuring), and to
> be honest, it sounds like a horrible idea.

Proposal typically don't cover this level of detail.  These are the sort of things that we have to sort out when I write the specification and it's why I bring them up here.

>  It is just another way to
> silently inject an `undefined' that is tedious to track down.  We
> already have too many of those...

It is how the language currently behaves in all situations where an object is needed but a primitive values is provided.  We want consistency in language design, not a hodgepodge of special cases and different rules.

> 
> When would this ever be useful behaviour instead of just obfuscating bugs?


let {toFixed, toExponential} = 42;

Allen