> On Aug 15, 2016, at 1:27 AM, Andrea Giammarchi <[email protected]> > wrote: > > FWIW, if `Object(Symbol()) instanceof Symbol` is true, and it is, we can say > `Symbol` is just an anomaly in the specs because it acts like other primitive > constructors but it throws if used as `new Symbol()`. > > Developers that would've written `new Symbol` are the same that write `new > Boolean` or `new Number` and `new String`. > > If these people don't put minimal effort to better learn/use the programming > language I wonder why the rest of the entire community should be penalised > with "quirks" like `Symbol` is.
The difference is that unlike Number/String/Boolean, there is not a literal syntax for creating Symbol values. For those primitive types that have a literal representation, it is very rare to ever need to explicitly instantiate a wrapper object via `new` and hence the there is little chance confusing the designation of a primitive value with instantiating a wrapper. Because Symbol does not have a syntactic literal form, some sort of invocation is required to acquire a new unique primitive Symbol value. That is where you get the potential for confusion between `Symbol()` and `new Symbol()`. And minimizing this sort of mistake is not just a matter of needing “better learning”. Even an experts can have momentary mental slips and type a `new Symbol()` when they really meant `Symbol()`. In the future, I would expect any new primitive types that have literals to follow the precedent of Number/String/Boolean and any that do not to follow the precedent of Symbol. Allen _______________________________________________ es-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
