On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Peter Michaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 3:40 PM, Jon Zeppieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Peter Michaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 12:11 PM, Jon Zeppieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>> I imagine the appeal of arguments.callee comes from the fact that it
>>>> allows programmers to rename functions without having to change
>>>> recursive calls within the body of the function.
>>>
>>> It makes recursive calls inside anonymous functions possible.
>>
>> No. See "fixpoint combinator."
>
> I was thinking about that in particular and thinking that
> arguments.callee makes a complex concept like fixpoint combinator
> something that is very easy to understand and use.
I don't see how.
At best you could say that arguments.callee obviates the need to
understand or use a fixpoint combinator. But the same can be said of
plain old variable definitions in ES.
>
>> But that's a somewhat flippant response. More to the point: if you
>> want recursion, one way or another, you need to be able to refer to
>> the function in question. 'arguments.callee' allows you to refer to
>> it but violates the Tennent Correspondence.
>
> Isn't Tennent Correspondence completely shot anyway in ECMAScript?
[MarkM already responded to this.]
>
>> So, given that you can
>> either refer to the function this way:
>>
>> var foo = bar() { ... bar ...}
>>
>> or this way:
>>
>> function bar() { ... arguments.callee ... }
>>
>> ... it's not clear to me what advantage the latter has over the former
>> (IE bugs aside, that is). Anonymity itself doesn't seem to be a
>> virtue.
>
> There is a large advantage in keeping code bulk down. There have been
> times that I've marveled at the utility of arguments.callee. Sometimes
> the variable that refers to a function value will be reassigned,
> arguments.callee just keeps working but your first example above
> breaks.
>
My example above is incorrect (sorry). It should be:
var foo = function bar() { ... bar() ... }
vs.
function foo() { ... arguments.callee ... }
In ES3 (though, apparently not in JScript 5.8, as liorean pointed
out), bar is scoped to the function expression, not to the enclosing
scope. If you do the following:
var foo = function bar() { ... bar() ... }
bar = 5;
... the assignment to bar does not break the function.
-Jon
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