Generator issue: exceptions while initializing arguments

[Allen Wirfs-Brock]

On Sep 8, 2012, at 5:11 PM, Brendan Eich wrote:

> Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:
>> On Sep 8, 2012, at 3:51 PM, Brendan Eich wrote:
>>> Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:
>>>> On Sep 8, 2012, at 3:20 PM, Brendan Eich wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> SpiderMonkey (Firefox 15 and newer has default parameters):
>>>>> 
>>>>> js>   function f(a = g) { function g(){}; return a; }
>>>>> js>   f()
>>>>> function g(){}
>>>>> 
>>>>> So function g is hoisted and a defaults to it, as expected.
>>>> While I agree that the above is reasonable behavior.  It wasn't the consensus that was reach earlier this year at the Jan.  (or may March??) meeting.  What we agreed upon is that default value expressions in parameter lists have visibility to the left and upward in scope but do not have visibility of anything declared within the curlies that surround the body.   So, in the above example, g should be a reference error when evaluated as a default value initializer.
>>>> 
>>>> As the NOTE in step 9 of 10-5-3 says:
>>>> 
>>>> 	NOTE	Binding Initialisation for formals is performed prior to instantiating any non-parameter declarations in order to ensure that any such local declarations are not visible to any parameter Initialisation code that may be evaluated.
>>> You're right, I had forgotten that.
>>> 
>>> Is it well-motivated other than in the naive left-to-right sense, which function hoisting already violates? Perhaps, because parameters to the right are not yet bound.
>> 
>> Personally, I think the consensus rules create special case anomaly  in the scoping rules that it would be good to avoid.  However, some of the TC39 member had a hard time accepting that the parameter list had visibility into what they perceived as a deeper level of curlies (the function body).  Personally, I would prefer to just think of the parameter list declaration as being logically part of the function body and treat all declaration in that scope contour consistently.
> 
> I agree. ES1-5 had no observable scope or hoisting boundaries among parameters, or between parameters and body top-level bindings.
> 
> I say we re-raise this at the TC39 meeting week after next. What say you?
I'm in...
> ...
> js> function f(a, b=a, c=d, d=d) {return [a,b,c,d]}
> js> var d='global'
> ...
> Note no outer 'd' shows up in the result of f(1,2). When SpiderMonkey implements support for undefined as the default-triggering sentinel, then we'd have
> 
> js> f(1, 2, void 3)

> [1, 2, (void 0), (void 0)]
> js> f(1, 2, void 3, 4)
> [1, 2, 4, 4]
> 
> which I prefer on the simpler-to-have-one-contour basis. What do you think?
> 
I'd prefer to consider the RHS references to d in the third and fourth parameters to be within d's TDZ.  Of course, that means that parameters (at least ones with initializers) are treated more like lets than vars.  That might be considers a departure from ES<=5.1 but I think it is more consistent with the new declaration semantics.

Allen

> The TC39 meeting that favored let* (Scheme let*, I mean) binding of parameters seems unnecessarily complicated, without a motivating use-case, and alient to the rest of the language.
> 
> /be
>