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98 Fixing This in Classes

The document discusses why auto-binding class methods in JavaScript is a bad idea. It presents a hacky way to achieve auto-binding by replacing methods with getters that return bound functions. This illustrates that auto-binding requires ugly hacks that don't fit with JavaScript's dynamic nature. While some propose auto-binding features, the speaker believes it goes against JavaScript's design and leads to poor workarounds.

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Mahipal Reddy
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26 views2 pages

98 Fixing This in Classes

The document discusses why auto-binding class methods in JavaScript is a bad idea. It presents a hacky way to achieve auto-binding by replacing methods with getters that return bound functions. This illustrates that auto-binding requires ugly hacks that don't fit with JavaScript's dynamic nature. While some propose auto-binding features, the speaker believes it goes against JavaScript's design and leads to poor workarounds.

Uploaded by

Mahipal Reddy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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[00:00:00]

>> Kyle Simpson: A while back I was thinking about this question of why people say
well, why couldn't you just make them autobound? And make it so that I don't have
to do this assignment every time? Couldn't JavaScript just do this automatically
for me? In fact I think there is a proposal.

[00:00:15]
I don't know if it's ever gonna happen, but I think there is a proposal for a class
decorator called @bound, which would make all your class methods auto-bound. So
this is at least something that they're considering doing at some point, is making
it so that you can opt into this auto-bound.

[00:00:31]
And you probably can tell from my tone, at this point, that I don't think that's a
great idea. But I wanna illustrate why it's such a bad idea through a code thought
experiment. I sat down and I thought, how would we make it so that we could have
methods on a prototype, but somehow also have auto hardbound methods that respond
to the instances?

[00:00:56]
And I came to the conclusion, there's a hack for this. And here's what it looks
like. What we will do is, and I'm not expecting you to read this code. I could zoom
in if you were really interested, but I'm not expecting you to read this code. It's
just that this particular utility method takes an existing method on one of your
prototype objects, and replaces it with a getter.

[00:01:21]
So in other words, instead of having your real method on your class prototype,
you're gonna have a getter. So when you access that property name through the
getter, it automatically creates a hard bound method for you on the fly, and then
saves it into a WeakMap. So it caches it into a WeakMap and then sends it out to
you through by way of a getter.

[00:01:45]
In other words, the getter is acting like a proxy to automatically vend these hard
bound or these auto hard bound functions for you. And so you get the benefit of
having a function on the prototype that can be inherited. But every time you access
it as a context dot, you're gonna get a hard bound version of it.

[00:02:07]
This is an illustration of why this is such a terrible idea. To have to go to that
kinda level of ugly hackery to get something to work, it just doesn't fit with the
DNA of JavaScript's functions. The whole purpose of this aware functions is so that
they can be dynamic.

[00:02:23]
And trying to force them into this other mode of working, which is like classes in
other languages, is why we wind up with terrible hacky crap like that. But, people
like to do that and this might actually end up landing natively, directly in
JavaScript.
>> Kyle Simpson: Here's how you use that by the way, this crazy little utility.

[00:02:49]
You can use it by simply calling that bind methods utility on the prototype of any
class. And it'll automatically go through all of your class prototype methods, and
replace them with getter versions that do the auto-bind method. And to my horror, I
tweeted this out the other day to say hey, this is a really bad idea and here's
why.
[00:03:13]
And then I got several responses from people saying I'm now using this in my
projects.
>> Speaker 2: [LAUGH]
>> Kyle Simpson: So,
>> Kyle Simpson: One of the famous quotes, I don't even know who to attribute it
to, but famous quotes that I love is there's nothing more permanent than a
temporary hacker.

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