Comment by j on "JavaScript Arrow Functions - WHY?!?"

The this reference is based on the context.

class DoSomethingWithTimeout {

    somethingDelayed;

    somethingOnInput(value) {
        setTimeout(() => {
            this.somethingDelayed = value;
        }, 1000);
    }
}

// without brackets it automatically returns the value
const x = n => n + 1;
const y = x(11); // 12

instead of 

function z(n)  {
  return n + 1;
}
var a = z(11); // 12

so less typing and no need for .bind(this).

I thought arrow functions couldn't access 'this' properly? Or is it that it misses the context in prototyping but works in immediates? No... gah, see this is why I dislike it.

Those just seem like pointless syntactic sugar designed to make what's happening less clear. That last part with the const (not behaving as constants would in ANY other language) in particular.

OF course JOE FORBID they give us actual constants or SHOCK defines. Instead we get some goofy "const" that has nothing to do with what they do in any other language, and "let" to do C's idiotic confusing (stack hell) scope binding whilst making the language look more and more like 4k Level 1 ROM Basic.

The first example there doesn't even look like it should be valid JavaScript (or valid in any language for that matter), the latter one is just taking something simple and making it aggravatingly cryptic.... all to save what? Six characters if you reduced the whitespace so as to compare apples to apples?

Starting to think that after 40 years I've just been at this $#!T for too long. The only thing worse than pointless changes are regressions that amount to nothing more than ignoring lessons already learned the hard way. It's often painful to watch the same mistakes repeated every six to ten years.

Jason Knight it's javascript it always has been a mess :D and yes const is basically just the final keyword for the JIT and even more confusing ;D for komplex types it remains as a reference so you can modify the content. I guess it's for the JIT so it can optimize certain parts in a clearer manner.

I am personally not the biggest fan of JS, still I gotta know my tools. And using () arrow functions proven quite useful by reducing a lot of clutter in a large code base. That's my experience as well as reference method passing in frameworks like react.

But I know ;D you don't like those ;D

it's javascript it always has been a mess

Fair enough. Absolutely fair enough.

That's probably the best answer... it's JavaScript, don't overthink it or try to find any rhyme nor reason; simply press on and don't ask these types of questions.

I suspect you're right about the motivation, but it also seems like people are starting to use the new features to write code in a functional style that almost looks like a different language. It can be really hard to read. That's not the fault of the language though. It will be interesting to see where it goes as the language matures, and people gravitate to conventions around how they use the new features. It seems like there may be an old way and a new way in the making.

Tor Nelson in the end it's always the same with these language decisions, some like it, some won't. In the end I just wanted to focus on what it does and less on how I personally feel about it. ^^

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