lexical for-in/for-of loose end

[Brendan Eich]

Herby Vojčík wrote:
> It looks to me that all those schemes and desugaring are very 
> complicated.

And what you showed isn't complicated? LOL.

What you're sketching is an optimization, one I believe Chez Scheme and 
other implementations perform. Indeed any good implementation will 
optimize let-bound loop variables to registers and avoid any 
per-iteration overhead in the absence of closures.

But what you sketched is nothing like a specification.

A normative specification does not describe non-observables, except in 
informative asides (which should be used sparingly). A specification 
must simply and clearly state the rules for syntax and semantics.

In particular, the ES6 specification governing the for-let loops we're 
discussing needs specific treatment to avoid the notorious var 
pigeon-hole problem made observable by closures in the loop body that 
capture loop variables. The simplest way to do this is being worked out, 
but it will necessarily entail a scope per iteration.

I argue the first iteration's scope must enclose the initialisers for 
the for(let;;) head's first of three parts. This is an important detail. 
It's not complicated beyond other parts of the spec; it's just detailed.

We have to have consistent for(let;;) semantics, and as the discussion 
has evolved (since 2008) we've come to agree on the constraints by which 
we reckon "consistent". The constraints require a specific solution, in 
my view: first iteration's scope covers iniitalizers, and 
observably-distinct let scopes for each iteration.

/be