Sep 27 meeting notes

[Waldemar Horwat]

On 09/29/2011 05:08 PM, Bob Nystrom wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Erik Arvidsson <erik.arvidsson at gmail.com <mailto:erik.arvidsson at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     However, it seems like all the issues we have seen are due to us
>     trying to solve issues that already exist today with prototype based
>     "classes". These involve (but are not limited to):
>
>     1. Don't let uninitialized objects escape
>     2. Ensure the shape of the instance
>     3. Initialization of instance properties
>     4. Allow const classes
>     5. Allow const properties
>     6. Play well with future type guards
>
>
> I was tinkering with some syntax ideas last night and had the same revelation. It feels like we've over-constrained ourselves.

I get that feeling as well.

> In particular, if you're willing to discard 2 and 6 (basically not worry about a declarative form for instance properties) I think it gets a lot easier.

Yes, it's easier, but you'd also lose any convenient way of doing 5.  2, 4, and 5 are the most important new features, and there isn't enough value in classes to add them without those.  If you find it difficult to come up with a proposal that can accommodate them, it's a sign that you're about to design yourself into a corner.

Constraint 1 is the one above that I'd relax.  All simple ways I've seen to to do it are variants of zero-inheritance.

     Waldemar