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Crazy we're still talking about it. I thoroughly understand `this` now after over a decade working in javascript, as well as thoroughly understanding `this` in

Crazy we're still talking about it. I thoroughly understand `this` now after over a decade working in javascript, as well as thoroughly understanding `this` in Typescript which I use more now. And I still make a mistake at least once a week. I know what I've done as soon as the code fails, but it's still so ridiculously easy to get into a context you didn't think you were. Of all the mistakes made in javascript, `this` stands head and shoulders above everything else, with its arm round the prototypal class structure.

christophilus 9y ago
I almost never use "this" in my JS code. I find that when you use a functional style of development, you largely avoid the "this" pitfall.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  That debate is long over. If there's anything that a decade of functional style being "the next big thing" has taught us, functional style is not "the next big thing" and most programmers don't work well in it.
  - disantlor 9y ago
    i strongly disagree with this. half of my posting history on here is evangelizing FRP in javascript (in my case via bacon.js). it has dramatically reduced the amount of time i spend on these and many other sorts of problems. honestly it makes programming way more fun. maybe haskell is a bit extreme for most situations but the concepts are not.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      While you may love functional, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, I think you're strongly disagreeing with the statement you think I'm saying, "functional is bad", rather than the actual statement I'm making which is "functional programming's had many chances to become a mainstream language and it never takes off (outside a few specialities)". What evidence do you have that functional is taking off? Since this board was around, every couple of years there's been a flurry of 3 months when a chunk of the community bangs on about functional programming. First it was Lisp, then Erlang, then Haskell, then F#, then Scheme. I might have got the order wrong. And it never, ever, ever takes off because while 10% of programmers find functional truly brilliant, the other 90% can't work with it. For context, in that time Ruby (via Rails), Python (via Django and use in Science), javascript server-side (Node.js), Go, Swift, Rust and now possibly Kotlin have all taken off. Plus various other techs like NoSQL.
      - christophilus 9y ago
        Hm. I guess it depends on your definition of mainstream. In the front end space, functional programming is taking off, I think. Could be wrong, but React + Redux + immutablejs is a popular and very functional approach to UI. Elixir appears to be on the same trajectory as Rails in it's early days. Anectodally, I know a lot of Rails devs and shops that are now primarily Elixir. Most mainstream languages have adopted functional styles and best practices. Higher order functions, a general acknowledgement of the benefits of immutability, etc. Fp may not be mainstream, whatever that means, but it's more popular than I can ever remember it being.
  - zhte415 9y ago
    This could depend on industry. In finance, functional is not the next big thing, but required. Needs context.
spinningarrow 9y ago
I may have misunderstood but do you mean that the prototypal class structure is also a mistake? If yes, in which way?
- mattmanser 9y ago
  They ended up having to add classes (albeit as syntactic sugar). Argue its advantages all you want, but I'd say that's representative of what a failure it's been. One of the last languages supporting prototype-based inheritance has basically given up on it. Personally, I find it an awkward way to try and encapsulate code, generally, it has terrible performance to boot.
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    Was there ever any issues with prototype-based inheritance? I've always assumed that they added classes simply because of stubborn classical-based programmers who couldn't bother to learn JavaScript correctly.
    - spinningarrow 9y ago
      That was my impression as well, especially since the class-ish syntactic sugar doesn’t improve performance either.
  - MoTTs_ 9y ago
    > One of the last languages supporting prototype-based inheritance... Actually, all this time, both Python and Ruby use what we would call prototype-based inheritance. https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6oqiyn/is_es6_completely_useless/dkjjh7t/ https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6oqiyn/is_es6_complet... https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/6c6use/how_the_hell_did_you_guys_learn_js/dhuut92/ https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/6c6use/how...

christophilus 9y ago

I almost never use "this" in my JS code. I find that when you use a functional style of development, you largely avoid the "this" pitfall.

mattmanser 9y ago
That debate is long over. If there's anything that a decade of functional style being "the next big thing" has taught us, functional style is not "the next big thing" and most programmers don't work well in it.
- disantlor 9y ago
  i strongly disagree with this. half of my posting history on here is evangelizing FRP in javascript (in my case via bacon.js). it has dramatically reduced the amount of time i spend on these and many other sorts of problems. honestly it makes programming way more fun. maybe haskell is a bit extreme for most situations but the concepts are not.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    While you may love functional, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, I think you're strongly disagreeing with the statement you think I'm saying, "functional is bad", rather than the actual statement I'm making which is "functional programming's had many chances to become a mainstream language and it never takes off (outside a few specialities)". What evidence do you have that functional is taking off? Since this board was around, every couple of years there's been a flurry of 3 months when a chunk of the community bangs on about functional programming. First it was Lisp, then Erlang, then Haskell, then F#, then Scheme. I might have got the order wrong. And it never, ever, ever takes off because while 10% of programmers find functional truly brilliant, the other 90% can't work with it. For context, in that time Ruby (via Rails), Python (via Django and use in Science), javascript server-side (Node.js), Go, Swift, Rust and now possibly Kotlin have all taken off. Plus various other techs like NoSQL.
    - christophilus 9y ago
      Hm. I guess it depends on your definition of mainstream. In the front end space, functional programming is taking off, I think. Could be wrong, but React + Redux + immutablejs is a popular and very functional approach to UI. Elixir appears to be on the same trajectory as Rails in it's early days. Anectodally, I know a lot of Rails devs and shops that are now primarily Elixir. Most mainstream languages have adopted functional styles and best practices. Higher order functions, a general acknowledgement of the benefits of immutability, etc. Fp may not be mainstream, whatever that means, but it's more popular than I can ever remember it being.
- zhte415 9y ago
  This could depend on industry. In finance, functional is not the next big thing, but required. Needs context.

spinningarrow 9y ago

I may have misunderstood but do you mean that the prototypal class structure is also a mistake? If yes, in which way?

mattmanser 9y ago
They ended up having to add classes (albeit as syntactic sugar). Argue its advantages all you want, but I'd say that's representative of what a failure it's been. One of the last languages supporting prototype-based inheritance has basically given up on it. Personally, I find it an awkward way to try and encapsulate code, generally, it has terrible performance to boot.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  Was there ever any issues with prototype-based inheritance? I've always assumed that they added classes simply because of stubborn classical-based programmers who couldn't bother to learn JavaScript correctly.
  - spinningarrow 9y ago
    That was my impression as well, especially since the class-ish syntactic sugar doesn’t improve performance either.
- MoTTs_ 9y ago
  > One of the last languages supporting prototype-based inheritance... Actually, all this time, both Python and Ruby use what we would call prototype-based inheritance. https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6oqiyn/is_es6_completely_useless/dkjjh7t/ https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6oqiyn/is_es6_complet... https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/6c6use/how_the_hell_did_you_guys_learn_js/dhuut92/ https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/6c6use/how...