Any reason why __proto__ is not a well known symbol?

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 8:34 PM, JD Isaacks <jd at jisaacks.com> wrote:
> I know ES2015 formally made the `__proto__` property a way to access/set an
> object's internal `[[Prototype]]` property.
>
> Is there any reason why this wasn't spec'd as a well known symbol such as
> `@@__proto__`. It just seems like it would line up well with other modifiers
> like `@@iterator`, `@@species`, etc.

It was specified before symbols existed, and all implementations do it
as a string property.  If we were reinventing it today it would either
be a symbol or something in the MOP, but are hands are tied by legacy.

> Being that it was not formally spec'd it shouldn't have broke backwards
> compatibility either.

Backwards compat has nothing to do with specs, and everything to do
with existing implementations.  Multiple implementations agreed on
__proto__, so our choice was either to leave it unstandardized or spec
what the browsers did.

~TJ