Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
 There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class constructors 
 should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and straight forward way 
 (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body can use to determine 
 whether it was called or new’ed.
 
 I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class 
 constructors.. 
 
 (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of inventing 
 some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call behavior. I don’t 
 think we need nor can afford to wait for the invention of a new mechanism 
 which will inevitably be more complex than new.target, which we already have.)
 
 I don't think this is an accurate representation of the discussion we had.

Any other reasons for throwing? It’d be great to know what they were!

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Yehuda Katz
On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 10:49 PM, Allen Wirfs-Brock al...@wirfs-brock.com
wrote:


  On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  ...
 
  Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator, or
 legacy (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
  Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except for
 class constructors and a few builtins

 I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be
 simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented
 because a class constructor throws when called.

 Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.
 You can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an
 “apply” handler (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a
 class constructor.   The the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is
 already reflected  by the typeof operator.  Class constructors throw when
 called because at the last minute we choose to make their [[Call]] do an
 explicit throw not because they aren’t callable.

 There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class
 constructors should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and
 straight forward way (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body
 can use to determine whether it was called or new’ed.

 I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class
 constructors..


 (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of
 inventing some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call
 behavior. I don’t think we need nor can afford to wait for the invention of
 a new mechanism which will inevitably be more complex than new.target,
 which we already have.)


I don't think this is an accurate representation of the discussion we had.



 Allen


 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
It doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but one risk is: people mistaking a class 
for a constructor, trying to subclass it as if it were a constructor and things 
failing silently.



 On 30 Mar 2015, at 07:49, Allen Wirfs-Brock al...@wirfs-brock.com wrote:
 
 
 On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 ...
 
 Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator, or legacy 
 (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
 Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except for 
 class constructors and a few builtins
 
 I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be 
 simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented 
 because a class constructor throws when called.
 
 Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.  You 
 can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an “apply” 
 handler (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a class 
 constructor.   The the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is already 
 reflected  by the typeof operator.  Class constructors throw when called 
 because at the last minute we choose to make their [[Call]] do an explicit 
 throw not because they aren’t callable.
 
 There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class constructors 
 should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and straight forward way 
 (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body can use to determine 
 whether it was called or new’ed.  
 
 I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class 
 constructors..
 
 (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of inventing 
 some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call behavior. I don’t 
 think we need nor can afford to wait for the invention of a new mechanism 
 which will inevitably be more complex than new.target, which we already have.)
 
 Allen
 
 
 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
 It doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but one risk is: people mistaking a 
 class for a constructor, trying to subclass it as if it were a constructor 
 and things failing silently.
 
 Can you give an example of what you mean?

```js
class MySuperClass {}

// This function assumes that MySuperClass is an ES5 constructor function
function MySubConstructor(foo) {
MySuperClass.call(this);
this.foo = foo;
}
MySubConstructor.prototype = Object.create(MySuperClass.prototype);
MySubConstructor.prototype.constructor = MySubConstructor;
```

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
 ```js
 class MySuperClass {}
 
 // This function assumes that MySuperClass is an ES5 constructor function
 function MySubConstructor(foo) {
MySuperClass.call(this);
this.foo = foo;
 }
 MySubConstructor.prototype = Object.create(MySuperClass.prototype);
 MySubConstructor.prototype.constructor = MySubConstructor;
 ```
 
 so if MySuperCall didn’t have the throw on [[Call]] behavior the above would 
 work just fine.

In general, I’d expect this kind of subclassing to fail, due to the new 
instantiation protocol. Wrong?

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Allen Wirfs-Brock

 On Mar 30, 2015, at 8:09 AM, Yehuda Katz wyc...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 ...
 
 I don't think this is an accurate representation of the discussion we had.

It’s my characterization of the situation and reflects my position. I agreed to 
disabling calling class constructors via a throw in order to get the consensus 
necessary to move forward with finishing ES6.  However, I also think that that 
restriction was technically unnecessarily and crippling for some use cases.  I 
know you have some, as yet not fully specified, alternative in mind. I don’t 
know its details so I can’t directly comment on it. But,  I’m skeptical that of 
the need for anything other than new.target and I’m pretty sure that any 
alternative will be move complex and take longer to get into implementations.

Allen



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Allen Wirfs-Brock

 On Mar 30, 2015, at 10:12 AM, Axel Rauschmayer a...@rauschma.de wrote:
 
 It doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but one risk is: people mistaking a 
 class for a constructor, trying to subclass it as if it were a constructor 
 and things failing silently.
 
 Can you give an example of what you mean?
 
 ```js
 class MySuperClass {}
 
 // This function assumes that MySuperClass is an ES5 constructor function
 function MySubConstructor(foo) {
 MySuperClass.call(this);
 this.foo = foo;
 }
 MySubConstructor.prototype = Object.create(MySuperClass.prototype);
 MySubConstructor.prototype.constructor = MySubConstructor;
 ```

so if MySuperCall didn’t have the throw on [[Call]] behavior the above would 
work just fine.

Allen

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
 On Mar 30, 2015 10:54 AM, Axel Rauschmayer a...@rauschma.de wrote:
 
  ```js
  class MySuperClass {}
 
  // This function assumes that MySuperClass is an ES5 constructor function
  function MySubConstructor(foo) {
 MySuperClass.call(this);
 this.foo = foo;
  }
  MySubConstructor.prototype = Object.create(MySuperClass.prototype);
  MySubConstructor.prototype.constructor = MySubConstructor;
  ```
 
 
  so if MySuperCall didn’t have the throw on [[Call]] behavior the above 
  would work just fine.
 
 
  In general, I’d expect this kind of subclassing to fail, due to the new 
  instantiation protocol. Wrong?
 
 Would work fine if throw semantics removed and invoked as
 ```js
 new MySubConstructor();
 ```
 Just like ES5.
 
 If invoked as
 ```js
 MySubConstructor();
 ```
 would fail just like ES5.
 
 Throwing on [[Call]] is a compatibility hazard.
 


Don’t the different assumptions as to where the instance is allocated ever 
clash here? What if `MySuperClass` were:

```js
class MySuperClass extends Error {
}
```

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Allen Wirfs-Brock

 On Mar 30, 2015, at 8:40 AM, Axel Rauschmayer a...@rauschma.de wrote:
 
 It doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but one risk is: people mistaking a class 
 for a constructor, trying to subclass it as if it were a constructor and 
 things failing silently.
 
Can you give an example of what you mean?

Allen
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
  Don’t the different assumptions as to where the instance is allocated ever 
  clash here? What if `MySuperClass` were:
 
  ```js
  class MySuperClass extends Error {
  }
  ```
 

 MySubClass preallocates when invoked via new. Just like ES5. So, 
 ```MySuperClass.call(this)``` is same as ES5.  What happens in MySuperClass 
 depends upon the ES6 level programmer.
 

Right, but I don’t see how an ES5-style constructor MySubContructor can 
allocate its instance and then have it initialized by an ES6 class (where the 
instance is allocated by a super-class). This is about ES5 code being 
confronted with ES6 code and assuming to see a constructor.

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter
On Mar 30, 2015, at 1:49 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock al...@wirfs-brock.com wrote:

There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class constructors 
should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and straight forward way
(new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body can use to determine 
whether it was called or new’ed.  

I don’t think it’s great to have branches in a constructor dealing with this — 
it’s not super-obvious reading the code what it means (so it’s another thing to 
train people to understand).

A better way (which I think has been suggested by someone already in a 
different thread), would be to have a separate “magic” method to provide `call` 
code.

```js
class Buffer {
  constructor(…a) {
// …
  }

  factory(…a) { // [@@factory](), __factory__(), whatever
return new Buffer(…a);
// Or whatever else one might wish to do in a factory method
  }
}
```

But, I think the factory problem is solved well enough with static methods

```js
class Buffer {
  constructor(…a) {
this.initialize(…a);
  }

  // Much easier to understand these, compared with Buffer(someBuffer) or 
Buffer(someArray) etc
  static withBuffer(buffer) { assert(Buffer.isBuffer(buffer)); return new 
Buffer(buffer); }
  static withArray(array) { assert(Array.isArray(array)); return new  
Buffer(array); }
  static withSize(size) { assert(IsUInt(size)); return new Buffer(size); }
  static fromString(str, encoding = “utf8) { assert(IsString(str)  
IsString(encoding)); return new Buffer(str, encoding); }

  initialize(…a) {
switch (a.length) {
  case 1:
if (IsUInt(a[0])) return allocateBufferOfSize(this, a[0]);
else if (Array.isArray(a[0]) return allocateBufferFromArray(this, a[0]);
else if (Buffer.isBuffer(a[0]) return allocateCopyOfBuffer(this, a[0]);
else if (IsString(a[0]) { /* fall through */ }
else ThrowTypeError(“Function called with incorrect arguments!);
  case 2:
if (IsUndefined(a[1]) a[1] = “utf8”;
if (IsString(a[0]  IsString(a[1]))  return 
allocateBufferFromString(this, a[0], a[1]);
  default:
ThrowTypeError(“Function called with incorrect arguments!);
}
  }
}
```

I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class 
constructors..

(The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of inventing 
some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call behavior. I don’t 
think we need nor can afford to
wait for the invention of a new mechanism which will inevitably be more 
complex than new.target, which we already have.)

I’m all for it if it can be allowed without making classes more complicated for 
consumers to use — The thing I like about requiring `new` is that it’s very 
simple and straight forward.

But in either case, these (IsCallable / IsConstructor) are pretty basic 
qualities of objects that a Reflection* api ought to be able to read into, imho.

 
 
 On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 ...
 
 Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator, or legacy 
 (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
 Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except for 
 class constructors and a few builtins
 
 I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be 
 simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented 
 because a class constructor throws when called.
 
 Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.  You 
 can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an “apply” 
 handler (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a class 
 constructor.   The the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is already 
 reflected  by the typeof operator.  Class constructors throw when called 
 because at the last minute we choose to make their [[Call]] do an explicit 
 throw not because they aren’t callable.
 
 There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class constructors 
 should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and straight forward way 
 (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body can use to determine 
 whether it was called or new’ed.  
 
 I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class 
 constructors..
 
 (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of inventing 
 some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call behavior. I don’t 
 think we need nor can afford to wait for the invention of a new mechanism 
 which will inevitably be more complex than new.target, which we already have.)
 
 Allen
 
 

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Tom Schuster
Thanks Caitlin for actually putting this onto github! I wasn't aware of
that process when I posted about this to the mailinglist. Asking again from
last time: Should we have Type == Object check like Reflect.isExtensible?

-Tom

On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com
wrote:

 **disclaimer** I know this has been brought up before, but bump :

 People are experimenting with polyfilled class implementations, which
 don’t all correctly throw when called as a function (no `new`). Eventually,
 they’re likely to be disappointed that this isn’t legal, and might have to
 undergo some serious pains to fix their applications.

 I notice that this is particularly problematic for AngularJS, because
 classes are registered with an injector, which doesn’t know if it can
 `[[Call]]` them or not. It will later on try to `[[Call]]` (depending on
 how the class was registered with DI). It would be really great if we had a
 way to determine if this was going to throw or not, other than looking at
 the
 stringified value of a function, so that these libraries could be updated
 to accomodate new class behaviour without pains (try/catch or processing
 Function.toString())

 Some ideas:

 Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator, or
 legacy (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
 Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except for
 class constructors and a few builtins

 I know it’s way too late for ES6, but maybe some kind of fast-tracked
 extension is in order? it should be pretty simple to implement these (and
 SM and v8 have variations of these in the runtime anyways)

 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Claude Pache

 Le 30 mars 2015 à 10:46, Allen Wirfs-Brock al...@wirfs-brock.com a écrit :
 
 
 On Mar 30, 2015, at 10:12 AM, Axel Rauschmayer a...@rauschma.de wrote:
 
 It doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but one risk is: people mistaking a 
 class for a constructor, trying to subclass it as if it were a constructor 
 and things failing silently.
 
 Can you give an example of what you mean?
 
 ```js
 class MySuperClass {}
 
 // This function assumes that MySuperClass is an ES5 constructor function
 function MySubConstructor(foo) {
MySuperClass.call(this);
this.foo = foo;
 }
 MySubConstructor.prototype = Object.create(MySuperClass.prototype);
 MySubConstructor.prototype.constructor = MySubConstructor;
 ```
 
 so if MySuperCall didn’t have the throw on [[Call]] behavior the above would 
 work just fine.
 
 Allen

I see an issue when MySuperClass contains itself a super() invocation... at 
least when that super-class is some builtin that doesn't support initialisation 
of pre-allocated instances, like `Array`. As currently specified, it will just 
throw, which is at least safe. It would be interesting to make it just work 
without hacks such as `if (new.target) super(); else super.constructor(...);`, 
and, in the same time, without silently break with `Array`, etc.

—Claude___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Peter Flannery
 On Mar 30, 2015, at 10:12 AM, Axel Rauschmayer axel at rauschma.de
wrote:

 It doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but one risk is: people mistaking
a class for a constructor, trying to subclass it as if it were a
constructor and things failing silently.

 Can you give an example of what you mean?

 ```js
 class MySuperClass {}

 // This function assumes that MySuperClass is an ES5 constructor function
 function MySubConstructor(foo) {
MySuperClass.call(this);
this.foo = foo;
 }
 MySubConstructor.prototype = Object.create(MySuperClass.prototype);
 MySubConstructor.prototype.constructor = MySubConstructor;
 ```

 so if MySuperCall didn’t have the throw on [[Call]] behavior the above
would work just fine.

 Allen

Would this be a work around? i'm seeing this work with v8 harmony classes
enabled, or is this something that wont work eventually?
```js
function MySubConstructor(foo) {
  MySuperClass.constructor.call(this)
  this.foo = foo;
}
```

I also noticed that using apply to chain constructors won't work either as
currently mentioned at Mozilla [Using apply to chain constructors](
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function/apply#Example:_Using_apply_to_chain_constructors
)

```js
//
function applyConstructor(ctor, args) {
var child = Object.create(ctor.prototype);
var result = ctor.apply(child, args); // !!! throws Class constructors
cannot be invoked without 'new'
return result  Object(result) === result ? result : child;
}
```

but this still seems to work
```js
function applyConstructor(ctor, args) {
return new (Function.prototype.bind.apply(ctor, [null].concat(args)));

}
```
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Yehuda Katz
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 5:36 AM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com
wrote:

 On Mar 30, 2015, at 1:49 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock al...@wirfs-brock.com
 wrote:

 There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class
 constructors should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and
 straight forward way
 (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body can use to determine
 whether it was called or new’ed.

 I don’t think it’s great to have branches in a constructor dealing with
 this — it’s not super-obvious reading the code what it means (so it’s
 another thing to train people to understand).


That's exactly my position. The co-mingling of [[Construct]] and [[Call]]
in a single function was a side-effect of having all-singing, all-dancing
functions. The nice thing about ES6 is that we got dedicated syntax for
classes and callbacks. Just because we *can* make constructor functions
serve double-duty via a reflective mechanism doesn't mean that's the right
thing to do.


 A better way (which I think has been suggested by someone already in a
 different thread), would be to have a separate “magic” method to provide
 `call` code.

 ```js
 class Buffer {
   constructor(…a) {
 // …
   }

   factory(…a) { // [@@factory](), __factory__(), whatever
 return new Buffer(…a);
 // Or whatever else one might wish to do in a factory method
   }
 }
 ```


That was the proposal I made that Allen alluded to:

```js
class Buffer {
  constructor(…a) {
// …
  }

  [Symbol.call](a) {
if (typeof a === 'string') {
  return Buffer.fromString(a);
}

return new Buffer(…arguments);
  }
}
```



 But, I think the factory problem is solved well enough with static methods

 ```js
 class Buffer {
   constructor(…a) {
 this.initialize(…a);
   }

   // Much easier to understand these, compared with Buffer(someBuffer) or
 Buffer(someArray) etc
   static withBuffer(buffer) { assert(Buffer.isBuffer(buffer)); return new
 Buffer(buffer); }
   static withArray(array) { assert(Array.isArray(array)); return new
 Buffer(array); }
   static withSize(size) { assert(IsUInt(size)); return new Buffer(size); }
   static fromString(str, encoding = “utf8) { assert(IsString(str) 
 IsString(encoding)); return new Buffer(str, encoding); }

   initialize(…a) {
 switch (a.length) {
   case 1:
 if (IsUInt(a[0])) return allocateBufferOfSize(this, a[0]);
 else if (Array.isArray(a[0]) return allocateBufferFromArray(this,
 a[0]);
 else if (Buffer.isBuffer(a[0]) return allocateCopyOfBuffer(this,
 a[0]);
 else if (IsString(a[0]) { /* fall through */ }
 else ThrowTypeError(“Function called with incorrect arguments!);
   case 2:
 if (IsUndefined(a[1]) a[1] = “utf8”;
 if (IsString(a[0]  IsString(a[1]))  return
 allocateBufferFromString(this, a[0], a[1]);
   default:
 ThrowTypeError(“Function called with incorrect arguments!);
 }
   }
 }
 ```


I agree that static methods are sufficient, but I also agree that it would
be nice to be able to describe existing built-in APIs in terms of classes.
That doesn't, however, mean that we need to force both use-cases into a
single function called *constructor*.

I feel strongly that this:

```js
class Buffer {
  constructor(from) {
// switch on Number, isArray, or Buffer
  }

  [Symbol.call](from, encoding='utf8') {
if (typeof from === 'string') {
  return Buffer.fromString(from, encoding);
}

return new Buffer(from);
  }
}
```

is clearer than:

```js
class Buffer {
  constructor(from, encoding='utf8') {
if (!new.target) {
  if (typeof from === 'string') {
return Buffer.fromString(from, encoding);
  }
}

// switch on Number, isArray, or Buffer
  }
}
```

For one thing, it requires the reader to know that `new.target` is being
used to determine whether the constructor was called with `new`. While it
certainly is expressive enough, it's an unusual reflective operation that
doesn't exactly say what you mean. For another, putting two uses into a
single method and separating them by an `if` is quite often a hint that you
want to break things up into two methods. I think that's the case here.

One of the nice things about the `[Symbol.call]` method is that a reader of
the class can determine at a glance whether it handles [[Call]], and not
have to scan the constructor to see if (and how!) `new.target` is used. And
since `new.target` can also be used for other usages, a reader unfamiliar
with the pattern might not even have a good query to Google (searching
what is new.target for in JavaScript, even if that works at all, might
likely bring up a bunch of articles about implementing base classes).

I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class
 constructors..
 
 (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of
 inventing some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call
 behavior. I don’t think we need nor can 

RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
I don’t think [Symbol.call] is a very good mechanism. A new syntactic form 
would make more sense.

It doesn’t seem right that you should have to introduce an observable prototype 
property just to get [[Call]] behavior. (Or a constructor property, if you 
change the syntax to `static [Symbol.call]() { … }`.)

And it raises the question of what happens when I add a [Symbol.call] property 
to other objects. What does it even mean? If I do `var obj = { prototype: { 
[Symbol.call]() { console.log(foo); } } }`, can I now call `obj()`? Is 
`typeof obj === function`? Very strange stuff. Presumably not very 
VM-friendly either, but that's just a guess.

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter
But in either case, these (IsCallable / IsConstructor) are pretty basic 
qualities of objects that a Reflection* api ought to be able to read into, 
imho.

What Allen is saying is that the implementation of throw if constructor 
doesn't work by not implementing [[Call]], but rather by implementing [[Call]] 
to
throw, so those reflective APIs would say the wrong thing, and that this is 
observable via proxies.

It’s a fair point, constructors do have a [[Call]] internal method — there’s no 
reason this needs to be described this way though. Instead of the extra step 
for classConstructors in 9.2.1, class constructors could just as easily not 
have a [[Call]] method at all (by default). I guess what I’m getting at is, 
right now they aren’t “really” callable, it’s just that the way their 
non-callable-ness is expressed makes them appear callable (which probably 
should not be the case). Since they’re intrinsically not callable (currently), 
they shouldn’t be treated as callable.

What Domenic is saying later on makes sense, the magic “call-code” method 
(should it ever exist) shouldn’t be a property of the class prototype, so a 
special syntactic form would work better (but also be kind of awful, too).

 
 Allen, can you say more about why you spec'ed it that way?
  
 
 
 
  On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com 
  wrote:
 
  ...
 
  Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator, or 
  legacy (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
  Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except for 
  class constructors and a few builtins
 
  I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be 
  simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented 
  because a class constructor throws when called.
 
  Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.  
  You can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an 
  “apply” handler (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a 
  class constructor.   The the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is 
  already reflected  by the typeof operator.  Class constructors throw when 
  called because at the last minute we choose to make their [[Call]] do an 
  explicit throw not because they aren’t callable.
 
  There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class 
  constructors should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and 
  straight forward way (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body 
  can use to determine whether it was called or new’ed.
 
  I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class 
  constructors..
 
  (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of inventing 
  some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call behavior. I don’t 
  think we need nor can afford to wait for the invention of a new mechanism 
  which will inevitably be more complex than new.target, which we already 
  have.)
 
  Allen
 
 
 
 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
Great to get the ball rolling. Here's some issues I'd bring up at the meeting, 
so we can get a head start:

- As discussed recently in 
https://esdiscuss.org/topic/reflect-getownpropertysymbols, right now Reflect 
only holds counterparts to the proxy traps. I think this is kind of a nice 
property. Do we want to expand Reflect into a dumping ground for all 
reflective operations? That's been implied many times on the list, but so far 
hasn't happened, from what I can see. On the other hand, I don't have any good 
ideas for where else to put these things. (Maybe Function.isConstructor? Not 
sure it scales.)

- Reflect.isCallable seems pretty pointless, when you can just do `typeof x === 
function`. YAGNI IMO. Note that it also doesn't match your earlier 
description from 
https://esdiscuss.org/topic/determine-if-a-value-is-callable-constructible#content-0,
 so it presumably doesn't solve those use cases. (But that definition can't 
really be workable, since all of the things you mention as not being callable 
are actually callable, in the same way `function f() { throw new TypeError(); 
}` is callable.)

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
If you made them non-callable by not implementing [[Call]], then typeof would 
no longer return function, which would be ... O_o.

 -Original Message-
 From: es-discuss [mailto:es-discuss-boun...@mozilla.org] On Behalf Of
 Caitlin Potter
 Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 11:25
 To: Yehuda Katz
 Cc: es-discuss@mozilla.org
 Subject: Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible
 
 But in either case, these (IsCallable / IsConstructor) are pretty basic
 qualities of objects that a Reflection* api ought to be able to read into, 
 imho.
 
 What Allen is saying is that the implementation of throw if
 constructor doesn't work by not implementing [[Call]], but rather by
 implementing [[Call]] to throw, so those reflective APIs would say the wrong
 thing, and that this is observable via proxies.
 
 It’s a fair point, constructors do have a [[Call]] internal method — there’s 
 no
 reason this needs to be described this way though. Instead of the extra step
 for classConstructors in 9.2.1, class constructors could just as easily not 
 have a
 [[Call]] method at all (by default). I guess what I’m getting at is, right now
 they aren’t “really” callable, it’s just that the way their non-callable-ness 
 is
 expressed makes them appear callable (which probably should not be the
 case). Since they’re intrinsically not callable (currently), they shouldn’t be
 treated as callable.
 
 What Domenic is saying later on makes sense, the magic “call-code” method
 (should it ever exist) shouldn’t be a property of the class prototype, so a
 special syntactic form would work better (but also be kind of awful, too).
 
 
  Allen, can you say more about why you spec'ed it that way?
 
 
  
  
   On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  
   ...
  
   Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator,
   or legacy (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
   Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except
   for class constructors and a few builtins
  
   I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be
 simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented because
 a class constructor throws when called.
  
   Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.  
   You
 can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an “apply” 
 handler
 (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a class constructor.   
 The
 the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is already reflected  by the typeof
 operator.  Class constructors throw when called because at the last minute
 we choose to make their [[Call]] do an explicit throw not because they aren’t
 callable.
  
   There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class
 constructors should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and
 straight forward way (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body
 can use to determine whether it was called or new’ed.
  
   I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class
 constructors..
  
   (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of
   inventing some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call
   behavior. I don’t think we need nor can afford to wait for the
   invention of a new mechanism which will inevitably be more complex
   than new.target, which we already have.)
  
   Allen
  
  
 
  ___
  es-discuss mailing list
  es-discuss@mozilla.org
  https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
 
 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Kevin Smith

 It doesn’t seem right that you should have to introduce an observable
 prototype property just to get [[Call]] behavior. (Or a constructor
 property, if you change the syntax to `static [Symbol.call]() { … }`.)

 And it raises the question of what happens when I add a [Symbol.call]
 property to other objects. What does it even mean? If I do `var obj = {
 prototype: { [Symbol.call]() { console.log(foo); } } }`, can I now call
 `obj()`? Is `typeof obj === function`? Very strange stuff. Presumably not
 very VM-friendly either, but that's just a guess.


I'd imagine that you'd re-spec [[Call]] for class constructors to basically
do `this[Symbol.call](...args)` instead of just throw.  It would therefore
only have an effect within class constructors.  Is that still weird?

Kevin
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Yehuda Katz
Yehuda Katz
(ph) 718.877.1325

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 8:09 AM, Domenic Denicola d...@domenic.me wrote:

 I don’t think [Symbol.call] is a very good mechanism. A new syntactic form
 would make more sense.

 It doesn’t seem right that you should have to introduce an observable
 prototype property just to get [[Call]] behavior. (Or a constructor
 property, if you change the syntax to `static [Symbol.call]() { … }`.)


A new syntactic form sounds good to me :)



 And it raises the question of what happens when I add a [Symbol.call]
 property to other objects. What does it even mean? If I do `var obj = {
 prototype: { [Symbol.call]() { console.log(foo); } } }`, can I now call
 `obj()`? Is `typeof obj === function`? Very strange stuff. Presumably not
 very VM-friendly either, but that's just a guess.


___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter

 If you made them non-callable by not implementing [[Call]], then typeof would 
 no longer return function, which would be ... O_o.


s/Object (implements [[Call]]) |“function” /Object (implements [[Call]] 
or [[FunctionKind]] is classConstructor) |  “function”/g

Problem solved!

I jest — but making a constructor identifiable as a function while still noting 
that it’s not “really” callable is certainly possible


 On Mar 30, 2015, at 11:27 AM, Domenic Denicola d...@domenic.me wrote:
 
 If you made them non-callable by not implementing [[Call]], then typeof would 
 no longer return function, which would be ... O_o.
 
 -Original Message-
 From: es-discuss [mailto:es-discuss-boun...@mozilla.org] On Behalf Of
 Caitlin Potter
 Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 11:25
 To: Yehuda Katz
 Cc: es-discuss@mozilla.org
 Subject: Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible
 
 But in either case, these (IsCallable / IsConstructor) are pretty basic
 qualities of objects that a Reflection* api ought to be able to read into, 
 imho.
 
 What Allen is saying is that the implementation of throw if
 constructor doesn't work by not implementing [[Call]], but rather by
 implementing [[Call]] to throw, so those reflective APIs would say the wrong
 thing, and that this is observable via proxies.
 
 It’s a fair point, constructors do have a [[Call]] internal method — there’s 
 no
 reason this needs to be described this way though. Instead of the extra step
 for classConstructors in 9.2.1, class constructors could just as easily not 
 have a
 [[Call]] method at all (by default). I guess what I’m getting at is, right 
 now
 they aren’t “really” callable, it’s just that the way their 
 non-callable-ness is
 expressed makes them appear callable (which probably should not be the
 case). Since they’re intrinsically not callable (currently), they shouldn’t 
 be
 treated as callable.
 
 What Domenic is saying later on makes sense, the magic “call-code” method
 (should it ever exist) shouldn’t be a property of the class prototype, so a
 special syntactic form would work better (but also be kind of awful, too).
 
 
 Allen, can you say more about why you spec'ed it that way?
 
 
 
 
 On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
 ...
 
 Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator,
 or legacy (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
 Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except
 for class constructors and a few builtins
 
 I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be
 simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented 
 because
 a class constructor throws when called.
 
 Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.  
 You
 can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an “apply” 
 handler
 (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a class constructor.   
 The
 the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is already reflected  by the 
 typeof
 operator.  Class constructors throw when called because at the last minute
 we choose to make their [[Call]] do an explicit throw not because they aren’t
 callable.
 
 There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class
 constructors should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and
 straight forward way (new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body
 can use to determine whether it was called or new’ed.
 
 I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class
 constructors..
 
 (The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of
 inventing some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call
 behavior. I don’t think we need nor can afford to wait for the
 invention of a new mechanism which will inevitably be more complex
 than new.target, which we already have.)
 
 Allen
 
 
 
 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
 
 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Kevin Smith

 I like the idea of a special syntactic form a lot. One of the nice things
 about `constructor` is that it's easy to explain you [[Construct]] with
 the constructor. We can't use `call` similarly any more, but I totally
 agree something like it would be pretty nice.


Unfortunately, we can't use a magic method name.  Just to throw out a
couple of other ideas though:

Parens sans method name:

class C {
  constructor() { /* new me */ }
  () { /* call me */ }
}

Contextual keyword after constructor:

class C {
  constructor() { /* new me */ }
  constructor call() { /* call me */ }
}

With a dot instead:

class C {
  constructor() { /* new me */ }
  constructor.call() { /* call me */ }
}
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Boris Zbarsky

On 3/30/15 1:33 PM, Axel Rauschmayer wrote:

As in “makes sense to call”. In the past, `typeof x === 'function'” was
an adequate test for checking whether it makes sense to call `x`.


Except for all the DOM constructors, right?

-Boris
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter
On Mar 30, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Domenic Denicola d...@domenic.me wrote:

Why do you say they're not callable?

Is this function callable?

   function f() {
 throw new TypeError(“f immediately throws);
   }

I think there’s a distinction here.

`function f() {}` might throw when called, but that’s in the author of the 
function’s control.

`class C {}` will always throw when called (in the current draft), so you can’t 
“really” consider it callable. No user-authored code is invoked when 
[[Call]]-ing a class constructor___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
 It could still be identified as a “function” for compat with ES5, but the
 behaviour is different from any other sort of function, it should be
 identifiable as different.

Right, but again, I don't think the behavior is any different from `function 
f() { throw new TypeError(); }`, so whatever the test you write returns for 
classes, my position is that it should return the same thing for `f`.

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
The distinction you're really pointing to here is the distinction between 
user-generated throwing functions and runtime-generated ones. Both are called. 
User-generated ones you could edit the source code of and insert a `called = 
true` line first, whereas runtime-generated ones you could not. But that's not 
a real material difference in call-ability.

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Kevin Smith


 That distinction means that you can’t “really” [[Call]] a constructor,
 it’s just that the reason is slightly different from trying to [[Call]] an
 Array instance (or something)


Another way to look at the situation is that, by default, calling a class
constructor will throw an error.  That default may be changed however.
Just not with ES6 : )
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter
Unfortunately, we can't use a magic method name.  Just to throw out a couple 
of other ideas though: 

Contextual keyword after constructor:

class C {
  constructor() { /* new me */ }
  constructor call() { /* call me */ }
}

This one looks like the most readable — I would make a slight adjustment:

class C {
  constructor() { /* new me *. }
  call constructor() { /* call me */ }
}

(just for the purpose of readability)

I think it might be hard to mix this up with computed property names, so `call 
[‘constructor’]()` might be a no-go? same with `[‘constructor’] call()` tbh

 On Mar 30, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Kevin Smith zenpars...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 I like the idea of a special syntactic form a lot. One of the nice things 
 about `constructor` is that it's easy to explain you [[Construct]] with the 
 constructor. We can't use `call` similarly any more, but I totally agree 
 something like it would be pretty nice.
 
 Unfortunately, we can't use a magic method name.  Just to throw out a couple 
 of other ideas though: 
 
 Parens sans method name:
 
 class C {
   constructor() { /* new me */ }
   () { /* call me */ }
 }
 
 Contextual keyword after constructor:
 
 class C {
   constructor() { /* new me */ }
   constructor call() { /* call me */ }
 }
 
 With a dot instead:
 
 class C {
   constructor() { /* new me */ }
   constructor.call() { /* call me */ }
 }
 
 

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
 In some way, that would even be correct – depending on what you expect a 
 function to be: something callable or something constructible. Alas, there 
 is currently no simple way to distinguish “callable” and “constructible”.
 
 Why do you say they're not callable?


As in “makes sense to call”. In the past, `typeof x === 'function'” was an 
adequate test for checking whether it makes sense to call `x`. Since ES6, it 
isn’t, anymore. That’s why the checks proposed by Caitlin will be nice to have.

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter
On Mar 30, 2015, at 1:44 PM, Domenic Denicola d...@domenic.me wrote:
From: Axel Rauschmayer [mailto:a...@rauschma.de] 
As in “makes sense to call”. In the past, `typeof x === 'function'” was an 
adequate test for checking whether it makes sense to call `x`.

I tried to explain explicitly why I don't think this is true.

Since ES6, it isn’t, anymore.

I disagree. The situation has not changed at all.

As I said above:

```js
var called = false;
function F() {
  called = true;
  throw new TypeError(“can’t call F()”);
}

F(); // Throws, but `called` is true

called = false;
class C {
  constructor() {
called = true;
throw new TypeError(“can’t call C()”);
  }
}

C(); // Throws, but `called` is false, because the constructor was never invoked
```

That distinction means that you can’t “really” [[Call]] a constructor, it’s 
just that the reason is slightly different from trying to [[Call]] an Array 
instance (or something)
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Caitlin Potter
I think we’re on the same page that the runtime is the one doing the throwing, 
but that doesn’t really matter. The point is, if you can’t actually invoke the 
authored code, you can’t really call the authored code “call-able”. To the VM, 
the difference doesn’t matter a whole lot, but to human beings, it does. It’s 
disingenuous to call it “call-able” if the authored code can’t be “called”. (A 
proxy trap doesn’t really make it “callable” either, it just allows different 
code to be “called” in its place).

It could still be identified as a “function” for compat with ES5, but the 
behaviour is different from any other sort of function, it should be 
identifiable as different.

 On Mar 30, 2015, at 1:54 PM, Domenic Denicola d...@domenic.me wrote:
 
 The distinction you're really pointing to here is the distinction between 
 user-generated throwing functions and runtime-generated ones. Both are 
 called. User-generated ones you could edit the source code of and insert a 
 `called = true` line first, whereas runtime-generated ones you could not. But 
 that's not a real material difference in call-ability.
 

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
From: Axel Rauschmayer [mailto:a...@rauschma.de] 

 In some way, that would even be correct – depending on what you expect a 
 function to be: something callable or something constructible. Alas, there is 
 currently no simple way to distinguish “callable” and “constructible”.

Why do you say they're not callable?

Is this function callable?

function f() {
  throw new TypeError(cannot call f because you're not pretty enough);
}

what about


function f() {
  throw new TypeError(Class constructors cannot be invoked without 'new');
}

?
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Peter Flannery
I personally think it's better to have **harmony** between ES5 and ES6
classes and not incompatibility.
The web and the like are currently littered with applications that use
[[call]] as a sub classing technique and now all these apps will be
give a harsh choice, either disregard using ES6 class syntax,
completely overhaul to suit ES6 or just don't move to ES6 until
time\money budgets permit.

Is it not possible to:

1. Have a unified construct for both class and function syntax, i.e.
`SomeClass.constructor.call` can be used to sub class for both ES6 and
ES6
2. Instead of throwing the message `Class constructors cannot be
invoked without 'new'` **change it to become** `Class constructors
cannot be invoked without using 'new' or it's .constructor method`
3. Functions will continue to have [[call]] regardless but it should
still be recommended to use `SomeClass.constructor.call` for sub
classing for great compatibility
4. Polyfill vendors have their own spec for this scenario. i.e. when
the detect class syntax is used then mark the output ES5 prototype
with a [[class-tag]] that allows them to assert and throw the same
`Class constructors cannot be invoked.` message as stated in point
2 above
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


RE: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Domenic Denicola
From: Kevin Smith [mailto:zenpars...@gmail.com] 

 I'd imagine that you'd re-spec [[Call]] for class constructors to basically 
 do `this[Symbol.call](...args)` instead of just throw.  It would therefore 
 only have an effect within class constructors.  Is that still weird?

At least it's explicable, but it's still pretty weird I think. I mean, we don't 
specify [[Construct]] by saying that it does `new 
this.prototype.constructor(...args)` or similar. The asymmetry is jarring.

And it's weird to have this symbol with such a generic name that doesn't work 
for anything except class syntax. I'd expect symbols to be for re-usable 
protocols... that's fuzzy intuition though, I admit, and might be contradicted 
by existing examples.

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Yehuda Katz
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Domenic Denicola d...@domenic.me wrote:

 From: Kevin Smith [mailto:zenpars...@gmail.com]

  I'd imagine that you'd re-spec [[Call]] for class constructors to
 basically do `this[Symbol.call](...args)` instead of just throw.  It would
 therefore only have an effect within class constructors.  Is that still
 weird?

 At least it's explicable, but it's still pretty weird I think. I mean, we
 don't specify [[Construct]] by saying that it does `new
 this.prototype.constructor(...args)` or similar. The asymmetry is jarring.

 And it's weird to have this symbol with such a generic name that doesn't
 work for anything except class syntax. I'd expect symbols to be for
 re-usable protocols... that's fuzzy intuition though, I admit, and might be
 contradicted by existing examples.


I like the idea of a special syntactic form a lot. One of the nice things
about `constructor` is that it's easy to explain you [[Construct]] with
the constructor. We can't use `call` similarly any more, but I totally
agree something like it would be pretty nice.

On the flip side, it's not *entirely* clear that allowing people to
override [[Call]] on an existing function is a no-go. Changing the `typeof`
via installing a symbol definitely seems like bad juju though.
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-30 Thread Axel Rauschmayer
 If you made them non-callable by not implementing [[Call]], then typeof would 
 no longer return function, which would be ... O_o.

In some way, that would even be correct – depending on what you expect a 
function to be: something callable or something constructible. Alas, there is 
currently no simple way to distinguish “callable” and “constructible”.

-- 
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
a...@rauschma.de
rauschma.de



___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-29 Thread Brendan Eich

Caitlin Potter wrote:
Well just to get the ball rolling, I’ve put together a markdown doc 
for this 
https://github.com/caitp/TC39-Proposals/blob/master/tc39-reflect-isconstructor-iscallable.md 



It’s such a minor item that I’m not sure how much to add to it, so 
maybe someone else will have a go at it instead.




Thanks, truly appreciated. These should get advanced at the next 
meeting. We can jump them more than one step, to high stage even, after 
everyone has a look and a night to sleep on them. If everyone on TC39 
takes a look now, even better.


/be
___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-29 Thread Brendan Eich
Last thread: 
https://esdiscuss.org/topic/add-reflect-isconstructor-and-reflect-iscallable. 
Died off again.


There's no issue with ES7 vs. ES6 without a spec, and having a draft 
spec at the right stage (1 for flagged implementation?) is the thing. 
Who will do it?


/be

Caitlin Potter wrote:

**disclaimer** I know this has been brought up before, but bump :

People are experimenting with polyfilled class implementations, which don’t all 
correctly throw when called as a function (no `new`). Eventually, they’re 
likely to be disappointed that this isn’t legal, and might have to undergo some 
serious pains to fix their applications.

I notice that this is particularly problematic for AngularJS, because classes 
are registered with an injector, which doesn’t know if it can `[[Call]]` them 
or not. It will later on try to `[[Call]]` (depending on how the class was 
registered with DI). It would be really great if we had a way to determine if 
this was going to throw or not, other than looking at the
stringified value of a function, so that these libraries could be updated to 
accomodate new class behaviour without pains (try/catch or processing 
Function.toString())

Some ideas:

Reflect.isConstructor(fn) -  true if Class constructor, generator, or legacy 
(and non-builtin) function syntactic form
Reflect.isCallable(fn) -  true for pretty much any function, except for class 
constructors and a few builtins

I know it’s way too late for ES6, but maybe some kind of fast-tracked extension 
is in order? it should be pretty simple to implement these (and SM and v8 have 
variations of these in the runtime anyways)

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-29 Thread Allen Wirfs-Brock

 On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:51 PM, Caitlin Potter caitpotte...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 ...
 
 Reflect.isConstructor(fn) - true if Class constructor, generator, or legacy 
 (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
 Reflect.isCallable(fn) - true for pretty much any function, except for class 
 constructors and a few builtins

I’ve already seen another situation (node’s Buffer) where code could be 
simplified by using a ES6 class definition but where that is prevented because 
a class constructor throws when called.

Just to clarify something.  Class constructors actually are “callable”.  You 
can observe this by the fact that Proxy allows you to install an “apply” 
handler (the reification of the [[[Call]] internal method) on a class 
constructor.   The the fact that an object can be [[Call]]’ed is already 
reflected  by the typeof operator.  Class constructors throw when called 
because at the last minute we choose to make their [[Call]] do an explicit 
throw not because they aren’t callable.

There is no intrinsic reason why we needed to mandate that class constructors 
should throw when called.  We even provided a simple and straight forward way 
(new.target===undefined) that a ES constructor body can use to determine 
whether it was called or new’ed.  

I think we should just drop that throws when called feature of class 
constructors..

(The restriction was added to future proof for the possibility of inventing 
some other way to provide a class with distinct new/call behavior. I don’t 
think we need nor can afford to wait for the invention of a new mechanism which 
will inevitably be more complex than new.target, which we already have.)

Allen


___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss


Re: Determine if a value is Callable/Constructible

2015-03-29 Thread Caitlin Potter
Well just to get the ball rolling, I’ve put together a markdown doc for this 
https://github.com/caitp/TC39-Proposals/blob/master/tc39-reflect-isconstructor-iscallable.md
 
https://github.com/caitp/TC39-Proposals/blob/master/tc39-reflect-isconstructor-iscallable.md

It’s such a minor item that I’m not sure how much to add to it, so maybe 
someone else will have a go at it instead.

(sorry for the spam)

 On Mar 29, 2015, at 11:32 PM, Brendan Eich bren...@mozilla.org wrote:
 
 Last thread: 
 https://esdiscuss.org/topic/add-reflect-isconstructor-and-reflect-iscallable. 
 Died off again.
 
 There's no issue with ES7 vs. ES6 without a spec, and having a draft spec at 
 the right stage (1 for flagged implementation?) is the thing. Who will do it?
 
 /be
 
 Caitlin Potter wrote:
 **disclaimer** I know this has been brought up before, but bump :
 
 People are experimenting with polyfilled class implementations, which don’t 
 all correctly throw when called as a function (no `new`). Eventually, 
 they’re likely to be disappointed that this isn’t legal, and might have to 
 undergo some serious pains to fix their applications.
 
 I notice that this is particularly problematic for AngularJS, because 
 classes are registered with an injector, which doesn’t know if it can 
 `[[Call]]` them or not. It will later on try to `[[Call]]` (depending on how 
 the class was registered with DI). It would be really great if we had a way 
 to determine if this was going to throw or not, other than looking at the
 stringified value of a function, so that these libraries could be updated to 
 accomodate new class behaviour without pains (try/catch or processing 
 Function.toString())
 
 Some ideas:
 
 Reflect.isConstructor(fn) -  true if Class constructor, generator, or 
 legacy (and non-builtin) function syntactic form
 Reflect.isCallable(fn) -  true for pretty much any function, except for 
 class constructors and a few builtins
 
 I know it’s way too late for ES6, but maybe some kind of fast-tracked 
 extension is in order? it should be pretty simple to implement these (and SM 
 and v8 have variations of these in the runtime anyways)
 
 ___
 es-discuss mailing list
 es-discuss@mozilla.org
 https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss

___
es-discuss mailing list
es-discuss@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss