On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Brendan Eich <[email protected]> wrote:
> Yes, and we could add call/cc to make (some) compiler writers even happier. > But users would shoot off all their toes with this footgun, and some > implementors would be hard-pressed to support it. The point is *not * to do > any one change that maximizes benefits to some parties while harming others. By the nature of their task and its complexity, compiler writers targeting JavaScript need JavaScript to have features that make it possible to generate efficient compiled code. Without the big features like call/cc there are many things that just cannot be compiled well enough...which ultimately means all the languages that compile to JavaScript are just thin sugar layers that really aren't even worth the bother. Those languages, like Coffeescript, are obscure and known by only a few people. The goal of pleasing compiler writers should be to make it possible to compile existing languages like Perl, Ruby, Python and Scheme to JavaScript. These languages are the ones that people know and really want to use and target their compilers to JavaScript. Peter _______________________________________________ es-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
