Re: Web IDL Garden Hose (was: ECMA TC 39 / W3C HTML and WebApps WG coordination)

On Sep 26, 2009, at 11:28 PM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> There are methods, but I'm not optimistic that they will cause  
> property reflection to wither.

getItem/setItem/removeItem/key/clear methods, plus .length -- not a  
balanced name-set stylistically, but usable to avoid collisions (my  
key is named 'key', heh).

Agreed it looks nearly hopeless to herd developers toward always using  
these methods instead of .myKey, etc.


> If the number of places in the Web platform that require custom  
> delete behavior goes from 1 to 2, that's a lot less bad than going  
> from 0 to 1. So it won't accomplish much. However, I missed a spot  
> and it looks like custom deleters are also used by the DOMStringMap  
> interface, which is used to reflect data-* attributes. <http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#domstringmap-0 
> > I don't think anyone has implemented that yet.

Horses still out the barn door and we didn't close it yet, I'm not  
sure who to blame except "us" (would be barn-door closers, possibly in  
charge of those horses -- but perhaps they're not even ours!).


> I believe we could get rid of custom deleters from the Web platform  
> if Firefox and IE remove support for custom deleters in  
> LocalStorage, refuse to add it back, and refuse to implement it for  
> DOMStringMap. If that happened, I'm sure other browsers and the spec  
> would follow suit. I don't think I can convince my colleagues to  
> remove the behavior from WebKit if Gecko and Trident continue to  
> support it.

I'll see what the relevant Mozilla WebAPI hackers think, if they're  
not reading this thread. At this point I suspect it is "too late", in  
the sense that we'd be taking risks with plaform compatibility we  
don't accept in our release version/compatibility plan.


>> What does typeof say for such a callable object?
>
> I think it should probably say "object", though that's not  
> compatible with ES3 or current WebKit practice.

ES3 lets host objects choose "function" or "object" or any old string  
("Implementation-dependent").

ES5 says:

Object (native or host and does implement [[Call]])
   -> "function"

Object (host and does not implement [[Call]])
   -> Implementation-defined except may not be "undefined", "boolean",  
"number", or "string".


> This is not an issue for DOM methods. It's an issue for interfaces  
> such as HTMLCollection and HTMLFormElement that support indexing by  
> function call syntax, for legacy compatibility reasons. Constructors  
> like XMLHttpRequest, Option and Image also do not inherit from  
> Function.prototype even though they are callable.

Right, thanks for clarifying that. DOM collection types, even if  
callable (VBScript was to blame) are not function objects, and DOM  
constructors, unlike chapter 15 built-in ES constructors, are not  
generally function objects.


>> This seems winning since developers want not only sane typeof,  
>> but .apply/call/bind.
>
> It's definitely winning, and it may be possible to apply it to  
> global constructors that are also callable as a future improvement,  
> but it's probably not possible to make HTMLCollection or  
> HTMLFormElement inherit from the Function prototype, and I think it  
> would not be desirable either.

Why not for HTMLFormElement? Agree for HTMLCollection.


> Perhaps it's sufficient to provide an API for altering the [[Call]]  
> and [[Construct]] behavior of an existing object without a first- 
> class syntax, following in the spirit of defineOwnProperty().  
> Something like foo.defineOperation("construct",  
> funcToCallWhenConstructing). This would address all of points 2 to  
> 5, for ECMAScript implementations that wish to precisely replicate  
> DOM behavior. This approach could also be used for index getters/ 
> setters/has-testers, general catchall getters/setters/has-testers,  
> removing either one of call or construct while retaining the other,  
> making call and construct do different things, and perhaps other  
> useses. And using a method instead of first-class syntax would let  
> scripts feature-test for this capability.

See http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:catchalls but note  
objections there, as well as some alternatives discussed in es-discuss@mozilla.org 
.

A MOP for catchalls that stratifies the hooks into mirage (by analogy  
to mirror-based reflection) objects may be forthcoming; we'll see  
(I'll let the experts say more). A dark horse, at this point, but hey,  
those other horses made it out of the barn ;-).

For simple things like non-constructor functions one might prefer a  
declarative form. As an implementor and a developer, I would --  
mutation is a bitch to optimize in a VM, and to contain in one's "user  
code". Also the meta-programming API seems likely to be more verbose  
than the (still elusive, but stipulate that it must be concise)  
hypothetical declarative syntax.


>> Ye olde Image and Option, at least, act like most built-in  
>> constructors by constructing when called, at least in Gecko and I  
>> think IE -- but not in WebKit (I just tested).
>
> My testing seems to indicate not in IE. Likewise for XMLHttpRequest.  
> We should probably specify one way or the other whether these are  
> callable and stick to it. I am indifferent as to which behavior we  
> standardize on.

Me too, except if I had to do it all over again I would have worked  
harder to make function-ness orthogonal to prototype, a mixin if you  
will. At this point,

http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:spread

takes away the need to inherit .apply/call, leaving bind as something  
that might better be a primitive operator that works for all callables.

I'm musing a bit here, bear with me. If we only hack incrementally,  
and preserve backward compatibility with frankly dumb (or merely  
hasty) design decisions (many mine!) then we'll probably make less  
progress than if we try to rationalize old and new in a better  
systematic design.

So I too am indifferent so long as we do make progress factoring  
function-ness out of which-prototype, if you get what I mean.


>> Date needs the latter.
>
> As do String, Number, Boolean and RegExp, if I recall correctly.

Indeed. More warts to avoid generalizing into a complexion. :-/

/be

Received on Sunday, 27 September 2009 07:30:52 UTC