Initializer expression on for-in syntax subject

Brendan Eich brendan at mozilla.org
Fri Mar 14 15:31:10 PDT 2014


Geoffrey Garen wrote:
> I suggested to Oliver that we accept "Identifier = Expression in 
> Expression” as valid syntax, but drop "= Expression” from the parse 
> tree after the fact.

Note that the issue here is only legacy that uses 'var' before 
Identifier. So you can't be sure of no compat break, since

for (var x = 'haha' in {});

with no enumerable properties on Object.prototype will iterate zero 
times, and the hoisted var x will be initialized to 'haha' and available 
after the loop.

> That way, we can still almost completely remove the construct from the 
> language without harming web compatibility.

I wish. But let's just evangelize the site, and any others that use this 
botch from the ancient world (JScript => ES1).

> I don’t see much value in making this decision based on strict mode. 
> So far, we’ve got nothing but trouble from policies like that.

I agree we shouldn't fuss with strict mode, it doesn't pay. We should 
impulse-shoot the bad old form, right between the eyes, in ES6.

/be


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