Re: A variation of Allen’s Class Definition Pattern

[Brendan Eich]

On Sep 25, 2011, at 9:20 PM, John J Barton wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 8:18 PM, Brendan Eich <brendan at mozilla.com> wrote:
>> ... and it is imperative as all get-out.
> 
> I realize this is supposed to be common knowledge, but I would
> appreciate a pointer to why 'imperitive' gets listed as a negative. In
> my experience declarative is only good for toy programs. Maybe I am
> mixing up 'declarative language' and 'declarative syntax in a
> language'?

I think so.

JS functions are declarative forms. They have binding effects before evaluation of expressions and statements in the containing function or program. This is a good thing.

Object and array literals in ES5 and reality are expression forms but compound, with declarative aspects: the property names are compile-time constants, the newborn object or array cannot escape and be witnessed partially initialized, prototype setters or proxies cannot intercept initializing assignments. These are good things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_programming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming

JS is multi-paradigm.

/be