typeof symbol (Was: Sept 19 TC39 Meeting Notes)

[Herby Vojčík]

Tom Van Cutsem wrote:
> 2012/9/29 Andreas Rossberg <rossberg at google.com
> <mailto:rossberg at google.com>>
>
>     On 28 September 2012 18:28, Tom Van Cutsem <tomvc.be at gmail.com
>     <mailto:tomvc.be at gmail.com>> wrote:
>      > I agree that proxying a symbol is of little value, but I didn't
>     say that
>      > symbols are closer to strings than to objects. I think symbols
>     are closer to
>      > objects: they have an unforgeable identity. Strings don't have
>     that, objects
>      > do.
>
>     I don't follow how generative creation is synonym to "identity", nor
>     how identity implies being an object. Should we make everything an
>     object just because we can? For symbols in particular I completely
>     fail to see a good reason for doing so (now that we are able to drop
>     the "public" name property). It will just induce extra cost for
>     dubious semantic value -- or actually, semantic cost, as the issue of
>     proxying them indicates.
>
>
> I'm not against thinking of symbols as an entirely new "class" of
> values. I was mostly arguing against the idea of having typeof symbol be
> "string". If there are good reasons for symbols not to get their own
> typeof type, I just think "object" would be more reasonable than "string".

When I though of this (from the user PoV), it seems to me that in fact, 
symbols _are_ closer to strings. I see it this way:

   - closer to object === "symbol have its own identity, state and 
behaviour, I can add new properties and methods etc." (an array is good 
example of this, if you consider what it can do _beyond_ elements and 
length)
   - close to string === "symbol have its own identity and a little more 
than that"

IOW, it seems to me that symbols are more like "parallel" set of 
strings, of which every new one is different ("has different sequence of 
chars"), but it does not carry all the other "object-like" traits with 
it. More or less, only things that matters if if a symbol a === a symbol 
b. Which I see as string-like, not an object-like.

But, again, this is less technical and more feeling.

Herby
>
> Cheers,
> Tom