The Secret Life of JavaScript Primitives

http://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-secret-life-of-javascript-primitives/

by toffeescript • 15 years ago

68 5 15 years ago

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LeafStorm3• 15 years ago

This...is incredibly typical of JavaScript's design.

praeclarum• 15 years ago

Well, at least it does the coercion for you (unlike Java).

LeafStorm3• 15 years ago

Good point. I remember trying to work an example in a Java textbook that involved building and printing out a times table. There were so many type coercion errors, I eventually just gave up.

TrevorBurnham• 15 years ago

True. I'd argue that it's the best of both worlds: Unlike Java, you have access to a bunch of helpful functions on every primitive, and you can add more by modifying prototypes; and unlike Ruby, primitives are immutable, which puts a cap on the level of complexity (you could write a whole book on Ruby's string objects).

LeafStorm3• 15 years ago

You could do something similar by having each primitive type share a global prototype á la Lua's "string" metatable. Most operations are implemented as primitives in the VM, but any non-primitive operations on primitive types go to the type's metatable.

The Secret Life of JavaScript Primitives

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