

Re: [whatwg] [Notifications] Constructor should not have side effects

From: Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:13:01 -0600
Message-ID: <CABirCh86ANPhcXsadzL-vMtP7yYzyN60QtgLK=cHwpxq+XEJ-A@mail.gmail.com>
To: Stewart Brodie <stewart.brodie@antplc.com>
Cc: whatwg@whatwg.org
On Jan 29, 2013 12:07 PM, "Stewart Brodie" <stewart.brodie@antplc.com>

> For example, how can you add event listeners to something that doesn't
> exist

yet?  Particularly if you want to use a closure with the new object.

The same way as always: just attach the listener.  You can't "miss" events,
since it's guaranteed that no events will be fired before returning to the
event loop.  This is a universal idiom on the platform, FYI.

> Having objects that begin their job when constructed simply avoids an
> > extra step for the user (telling it to start), and reduces the number of
> > possible states (eg. eliminating the UNSENT state), which generally
> > simplifies things. Supporting reuse of objects is generally not a useful
> > optimization (in my experience), so not supporting it also simplifies
> > things a bit. Reducing the number of different-but-equivalent ways of
> > doing the same thing is also generally good API design.
> I agree - but I don't see what this has to do with separating construction
> from activation.

Object reuse was given as an argument to having a separate send() method,
but allowing object reuse is a bad thing unless there are compelling use
cases for supporting it.

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 12:26 PM, Elliott Sprehn <esprehn@gmail.com> wrote:

> With notifications I can't look at the properties of a
> notification in the web inspector without having it show on me...

It doesn't matter if it's being shown or not, if you're just debugging.

Constructors are not verbs. new Notification doesn't mean "show", and new
> XMLHttpRequest doesn't mean "send".

I disagree.

> This is pretty standard OO best practices stuff.

I disagree.

Unless you give arguments rather than assertions, there's nothing to argue
against, so all I can do is state my disagreement.  Constructors are
essentially nothing but a different syntax for a function that returns an
object of the same type.  Some languages, like Python, don't even
differentiate the syntax.  There's no implication about side-effects one
way or the other.

Glenn Maynard
Received on Wednesday, 30 January 2013 00:13:25 GMT
