RE: [WebIDL] interface objects and properties too restrictive?

Sure.

Not only does ES5's configurable: false property prevent deletion, but it also prevents changing a property from a field to an accessor and vice-versa, as well as changing the getter/setters of the property.

So, the following wouldn't work if the "appendChild" property was configurable:false:

Object.defineProperty(Node.prototype, 
                      "appendChild", 
                      { get: function() { /* custom getter replacement */ }, 
                        set: function(x) { /* custom setter replacement */ }
                      });

... which is the ES5 way of doing:
Node.prototype.__defineGetter__("appendChild", function() { /* custom getter replacement */ });
Node.prototype.__defineSetter__("appendChild", function(x) { /* custom setter replacement */ });

So, configurable: false prevents users from replacing built-in properties with getter/setters. I think this is too restrictive, especially forward-looking considering how much the DOM is changing and evolving.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonas Sicking [mailto:jonas@sicking.cc] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 5:22 PM
To: Travis Leithead
Cc: Cameron McCormack; Sam Weinig (weinig@apple.com); public-webapps@w3.org
Subject: Re: [WebIDL] interface objects and properties too restrictive?

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Travis Leithead <travil@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hey folks, just wondering what the justification behind the current 
> {DontDelete} semantics are in WebIDL 4.4 [1] and 4.5 (second bullet) 
> [2]. When our IE9 binding ported this to ES5, it translated to 
> "configurable: false", which completely destroyed the ability to set 
> accessors on the interface objects as well as operations (and in our 
> case, DOM accessors). Because of this, we actually don't mark our 
> interface objects OR operations/attributes as configurable: false, 
> rather configurable: true.*
>
> If this seems reasonable, I'd like to see the spec updated.

Sorry, I'm not very updated on the differences between the ES3 and ES5 worlds. Why does "configurable: false" destroyed the ability to set accessors? Can you give an example of a piece of script that doesn't work but which you'd like to work, and what you'd like it to do?

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 4 August 2010 18:36:39 UTC