5 ms·

Hopefully they come up with something better than a # prefix for identifying private fields. It seems like a small thing, but it looks clunky and arbitrary. Eve

Hopefully they come up with something better than a # prefix for identifying private fields. It seems like a small thing, but it looks clunky and arbitrary. Even _ would be better, but best of all would be adding a keyword or something instead of using a glyph.

v413 5y ago
The # symbol denoting private fields has already been finalized and approved to be a legal part of the language. No going back.
the_other 5y ago
For some time, there was a trend of adding _ to property and method names to indicate “I’m pretending to be private, don’t use me” (I think this happens in several languages, but I only know JS well). I suspect there’s a risk that if the committee standardised on _ rather than #, it would actually break a load of older apps and content. There’s a good chance the _convention was abused in those earlier codebases.
- unwind 5y ago
  As far as I know it's the standard way in Python.
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  Why can’t they just introduce a new private keyword, i.e. private let myVar = 0;
  - ezekg 5y ago
    The proposal doesn’t even know.
- Madeindjs 5y ago
  > `_` would cause compatibility issues with existing JavaScript code, which has allowed `_` at the start of an identifier or (public) property name for a long time. -- https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/...
nobody0 5y ago
Yes, _ is much better given its precenses in other languages. I would associate # with a number or a link.
- nikolay 5y ago
  The semantic meaning of "#name" is not private. In fact, the "_" is much more meaningful than "#", which is always used as in the meaning of "number" or "index".
ssdspoimdsjvv 5y ago
One more reason to just use Typescript.
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  Variables are never truly private in the compiled JS though. You can fake it using clever closure techniques but there are still ways to access the vars as I understand it. This is fixing that at the JS level.
  - tylerhou 5y ago
    I don’t know of any way of accessing lexically bound variables that are captured by a closure if there is no explicit getter.
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  Typescript is a mostly superset of javascript. Typescript does/will also support # for private fields so it changes absolutely nothing.
elondaits 5y ago
This is all covered here: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/...
cutler 5y ago
Better would be priv.
- nikolay 5y ago
  This is exactly what I came up with, too, because it follows "constant => const" analogy. Why are constants not "$name" using the same perverted logic?!

v413 5y ago

The # symbol denoting private fields has already been finalized and approved to be a legal part of the language. No going back.

the_other 5y ago

For some time, there was a trend of adding _ to property and method names to indicate “I’m pretending to be private, don’t use me” (I think this happens in several languages, but I only know JS well). I suspect there’s a risk that if the committee standardised on _ rather than #, it would actually break a load of older apps and content. There’s a good chance the _convention was abused in those earlier codebases.

unwind 5y ago
As far as I know it's the standard way in Python.
andy_ppp 5y ago
Why can’t they just introduce a new private keyword, i.e. private let myVar = 0;
- ezekg 5y ago
  The proposal doesn’t even know.
Madeindjs 5y ago
> `_` would cause compatibility issues with existing JavaScript code, which has allowed `_` at the start of an identifier or (public) property name for a long time. -- https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/...

nobody0 5y ago

Yes, _ is much better given its precenses in other languages. I would associate # with a number or a link.

nikolay 5y ago
The semantic meaning of "#name" is not private. In fact, the "_" is much more meaningful than "#", which is always used as in the meaning of "number" or "index".

ssdspoimdsjvv 5y ago

One more reason to just use Typescript.

andy_ppp 5y ago
Variables are never truly private in the compiled JS though. You can fake it using clever closure techniques but there are still ways to access the vars as I understand it. This is fixing that at the JS level.
- tylerhou 5y ago
  I don’t know of any way of accessing lexically bound variables that are captured by a closure if there is no explicit getter.
throw_m239339 5y ago
Typescript is a mostly superset of javascript. Typescript does/will also support # for private fields so it changes absolutely nothing.

elondaits 5y ago

This is all covered here: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/tc39/proposal-private-fields/blob/master/...

cutler 5y ago

Better would be priv.

nikolay 5y ago
This is exactly what I came up with, too, because it follows "constant => const" analogy. Why are constants not "$name" using the same perverted logic?!