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Re: out of sheer curiosity... [message #177426 is a reply to message #177422] Wed, 28 March 2012 19:12 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Thomas 'PointedEars' is currently offline  Thomas 'PointedEars'
Messages: 701
Registered: October 2010
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Senior Member
Leonardo Azpurua wrote:

> Is there any good reason for not implementing the dot as a member selector
> for objects?

Perhaps to have a separate operator for string concatenation?

> i.e. instead of $object->memberFunction(...), just
> $object.memberFunction(...)
>
> Jumping back and forth between javaScript and PHP (which I guess is a
> common situation for PHP developers)

There is no `javaScript'. [1a, 1b] However, you may have observed that
(barring String and Array methods) you need to use the `+' operator both for
addition and string concatenation in ECMAScript implementations [2].
Because those languages are loosely and dynamically typed [3], that has
turned out to be a disadvantage as it is a frequent problem (not only for
beginners) there, especially with calculation in Web forms (where all
control values are strings [4]). In PHP you get implicit conversion to a
numeric type with the `+' operator, and implicit conversion to string with
the `.' operator. [5] In PHP, '1' + 2 will never result in '12' as it will
in ECMAScript.

In order to complement Java [6, 7], Netscape JavaScript needed to be Java-
like; PHP did not. So only with the former, the `.' punctuator was already
taken for property access. That propagated from JavaScript 1.1 (at the
latest) to Microsoft JScript 1.0, therefore to the ECMAScript Language
Specification whose first edition was based on both languages [8], and
naturally to later ECMAScript implementations.

> makes it easy to use dots when arrows should be used, and viceversa.

Programming becomes a lot easier when you accept the fact that there are
different programming languages with different syntaxes and sets of
paradigms that are supported. Do not try (as a programmer) to make one
programming look or work like another; try to leverage the advantages of
each programming language instead.

Indeed, with PHP code and code written in/for ECMAScript implementations
often being used in the same file but *usually* executed in different
runtime environments (PHP: server-side; ECMAScript implementations: client-
side), and supporting by default different sets of programming paradigms and
inheritance types (PHP: procedural-imperative, object-oriented with class-
based inheritance, partially functional¹; ECMAScript implementations:
procedural-imperative, object-oriented with prototype-based inheritance,
fully functional¹) it is good that their syntax does not look the same, as
the different syntax is helpful in telling them apart.


HTH

PointedEars
___________
¹ supporting lambda calculus, like e.g. Lisp or Haskell

References:

[1a] Lahn, Thomas (2011-08-21). ECMAScript Support Matrix.
<http://PointedEars.de/scripts/test/es-matrix/>.
[1b] Lahn, Thomas (2012). Features von ECMAScript-basierten
Programmiersprachen – Eine vergleichende Analyse. BSc SUPSI.
Fernfachhochschule Schweiz (FFHS).
[2] Ecma International (2011-06). Standard ECMA-262. ECMAScript Language
Specification. 5.1 Edition.
<http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/
ECMA-ST/Ecma-262.pdf> (accessed 2011-08-27). Section 11.6.1.
[3] ibid., section 8.
[4] World Wide Web Consortium (2003). Document Object Model (DOM) Level
2 HTML Specification. Version 1.0. Appendix D: ECMAScript Language
Binding.
<http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-HTML/ecma-script-binding.html>
(accessed 2012-03-28).
[5] The PHP Documentation Group (2012). PHP Manual. Operators.
<http://php.net/operators> (accessed 2012-03-28).
[6] Krill, Paul (2008-06-23). „JavaScript creator ponders past, future“.
In: InfoWorld. Developer World.
<http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/
javascript-creator-ponders-past-future-704> (accessed 2011-12-22).
[7] Hamilton, Naomi (2008-07-31). „The A-Z of Programming Languages:
JavaScript“. In: Computerworld. The A-Z of Programming Languages.
<http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/255293/a-z_programming_
languages_javascript/> (accessed 2011-12-31).
[8] Ecma International (June 1997). Standard ECMA-262 – ECMAScript: A
general-purpose, cross-platform programming language.
<http://www.mozilla.org/js/language/E262.pdf (accessed 2003-12-15).
p. 2.
--
When all you know is jQuery, every problem looks $(olvable).

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