Re: ECMAScript and chaining

On Thursday, November 22, 2012 at 7:32 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 3:31 AM, Rick Waldron <waldron.rick@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 5:26 PM, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@annevk.nl> wrote:
> > > I was wondering if the plan of TC39 is to start returning the object
> > > on which a method was invoked if that method would otherwise just
> > > return undefined. E.g. this seems to be what Object.freeze() and
> > > Object.preventExtensions() do. It's also a somewhat popular API idiom
> > > in jQuery and the like (see also method chaining, fluent interface).
> > >  
> >  
> >  
> > I'm not sure what you mean by "start"—this is already the prevailing
> > practice. APIs either return an expected specified value/object, the target
> > object (in the case of static built-ins, eg. Object.freeze(o); // o ) or a
> > new specified object (eg. Array.prototype.{ filter, map } etc.).
> >  
>  
>  
> Well e.g. Date seems to work differently (e.g. setHours returns
> milliseconds rather than just the Date object),
>  
>  

Did you intentionally ignore the fact that I identified several common "returns"?

"return an expected specified value/object"

Would cover the case you just described. Here's another: Array.prototype.push returns the new length.

  
> and only the Object
> examples you give match the definition I gave and since those are
> relatively new I thought I'd raise the question.
>  
>  
> > > (The reason I'm asking is that I just WONTFIXED two bugs asking for
> > > that stating that ECMAScript did not have this pattern either and I
> > > was confronted with the above.
> > >  
> >  
> >  
> > Links?
>  
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13681
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16425
>  
>  
> > > I had been looking at Map.set() myself.)
> >  
> > The ES6 Map, Set and WeakMap API specifications are still in development and
> > probably shouldn't be used to make decisions like this.
> >  
>  
>  
> Why not? Patterns used for new APIs typically show the trend.
>  
For exactly the reason I explained: they are unfinished.
  
>  
>  
> > In this particular case there is no rationale documented for these not
> > returning the object they are called from, so it's still open for
> > discussion, ie. Map.prototype.set, Set.prototype.add and
> > WeakMap.prototype.set.
> >  
>  
>  
> We'll see I guess.
Yes, I've added this to the agenda for TC39 in-person meeting next week.


Rick
  
>  
>  
> --  
> http://annevankesteren.nl/
>  
>