[Python-ideas] Javascript Destructuring Assignment (original) (raw)

Brett Cannon brett at python.org
Tue Mar 6 00:12:58 CET 2007

On 3/5/07, Talin <talin at acm.org> wrote:

As you probably know, the next version of Javascript (1.7) will have a number of ideas that have been borrowed from Python. In particular, the "tuple assignment" syntax will now be supported in Javascript, which will be a pleasant addition to the language.

However, I noticed that the Javascript version is, in some respects, a superset of the Python functionality. If you are interested, you might have a look at this page: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/NewinJavaScript1.7 Go to the section called "Destructuring assignment" to check out how the new syntax is going to work. As an example of what I mean, the Javascript unpacking syntax will allow variables to be skipped: [a,,b] = [1,2,3] In other words, a is assigned the value 1, the value 2 is thrown away, and b is assigned the value 3. In today's Python, this requires a dummy variable.

It skips in the middle?!? Yuck.

I admit that this is not a particularly important feature; However, given that Javascript is being inspired by Python in this case, maybe it would be appropriate to return the favor?

I personally am -1 on the idea. Explicit is better than implicit.

-Brett

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