Re: variable declarations shadowing named properties on window

Cameron McCormack
>> Having the named properties live elsewhere does effectively make
>> [ReplaceableNamedProperties] usable only for singletons like Window
>> (since otherwise it would be weird if there were multiple instances with
>> an object in their proto chain that returns named properties for all
>> instances at once), but that's probably not a big deal; we shouldn't be
>> encouraging spec writers to use [ReplaceableNamedProperties] anyway.

Boris Zbarsky:
> The main use case is for global objects, so you can have undeclared
> global variables work "right". And global objects are by assumption
> singletons.

>> But to be honest, I'm not strongly attached to this over your suggestion
>> of putting the properties on Window.prototype itself, if we are not
>> having a separate named properties object exist as window.__proto__.
>> Boris, apart from being different from what Gecko does now, do you
>> forsee any problems with sticking the named properties on
>> Window.protoype?
>
> In at least Gecko I suspect this would make calling DOM methods on the
> window slower because the normal JS optimizations would be disabled for
> Window.prototype. We can make it work, obviously, but it would not be my
> preferred choice.
>
> I can't speak to whether any other UAs would have issues with it.

OK.

I thought some more and in the end I think having a separate object 
would be cleaner and simpler than sticking them on Window.prototype, and 
am not too concerned with breaking sites (especially since this is where 
they live in Gecko already).  If we do run into broken sites later, we 
can try a different solution.

This new object (the "named properties object") behaves like any other 
[NoInterfaceObject] prototype object.  I'll have it stringify to 
"WindowProperties" (analogously to "WindowPrototype" which is what we 
have for Window.prototype now).  It exists just above Window.prototype.

http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebIDL/#NamedPropertiesObject
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebIDL/#named-properties-object

http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2006/webapi/WebIDL/Overview.xml.diff?r1=1.453;r2=1.454;f=h

Thanks,

Cameron

Received on Friday, 27 January 2012 04:07:11 UTC