On Feb 13, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Peter Michaux wrote:
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Brendan Eich <[email protected]>
wrote:
JS is used by many more programmers, amateur and pro, than C. It
has to have
better human factors than C. That goes against being a good code
generator
target language.
I think that may not be true in all cases.
I wrote "that goes against". It was not an exhaustive claim, it was
about tendency and design focus. When push comes to shove, it means no
goto, no call/cc, no low-level machine types (exception: ByteVector as
discussed).
methodMissing is an example where both groups could benefit.
We added __noSuchMethod__ for TIBET, not for code generators. But I'm
bored with this straw man already.
Tail calls is another feature I think benefit both especially as
interest in functional languages is rising
strongly.
I happen to agree, but these already foundered during ES4 development.
When weighing the pros and cons of a proposed feature, knowing that
putting "helps compilers" in the pros column is considered acceptable
is important. Does "helps compilers" carry any weight at all with the
committee?
I can only speak for myself, but "helps compilers" is hard to judge
without compilers in hand. And IMO it has to lose to usability and
safety-last human factors for things like call/cc.
If it does then there is no need for anyone to dance around
it for fear of being called a distractor or disruptively off topic.
They can just say it as part of an acceptable discussion.
We are not subject to a moderator rejecting unacceptable discussion.
I'm disagreeing with you, to the extent I can get clear statements to
agree or disagree with, 'sall.
/be
_______________________________________________
Es-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
