TC39 Pipeline Operator – Hack vs. F#

Re:TC39 Pipeline Operator – Hack vs. F# by dtech on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @05:35PM (#28531682)

The advantage is that you don't have to name things. "v" is a bad name in a larger context, and it quikly becomes unwieldy if you use a full name.

    let transformedData = transformFoo(data);
    transformedData = transformBar(transformedData);
    transformedData = transformBaz(transformedData);

 vs.

    const transformedData = data
      |> transformFoo
      |> transformBar
      |> transformBaz

If you want have const's the first becomes even more unwieldy, and in general I'd recommend using const by default.

Just like lambda syntax makes it much easier and readable to write small functions, the pipe operator make it much easier and readable to write chains.

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Re:TC39 Pipeline Operator – Hack vs. F# by tzs on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @07:27PM (#28532942)

I find |> annoying to type. How about making it so unary functions can be invoked like this?

  arg function_name

Then instead of

  arg |> func1 |> func2 |> func3

you could simply write

  arg func1 func2 func3

It might get a bit ugly when used with arrow functions instead of named functions, and there might need to be a special case when arg is a function, but if those problems could be handled not too unreasonably this seems a fine approach for a programming language.

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Re:TC39 Pipeline Operator – Hack vs. F# by throw_m239339 on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @05:44PM (#28531805)

> Just like lambda syntax makes it much easier and readable to write small functions, the pipe operator make it much easier and readable to write chains.

succinct =/= more readable.

Readability here is really in the eye of the beholder...

It's certainly quicker to type, but that's not a good argument enough to make such a drastic change in javascript.

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Re:TC39 Pipeline Operator – Hack vs. F# by VenTatsu on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @06:40PM (#28532494)

> It's certainly quicker to type, but that's not a good argument enough to make such a drastic change in javascript.

I am so glad this argument has not been winning out in the JavaScript language design community. There are so many wonderful constructs that have been added in the last 20 years that are just sorter ways to write things that could mostly already be done in the language. Many of these features focused on allowing developers to write what they intended to do without having to explicitly construction the intermediate steps to express the mechanics of how that should be carried out using basic language features.

After all why do we need arrow functions when we could just sprinkle our code with `var self = this;` declarations for anonymous functions to bind to, the way it was done in the late 90's and early 00's.

I'd much rather JavaScript adopt succinct ways to write common code patterns and let the developers and the community decide if those constructs are the correct ones to use on a case by case basis.

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Re:TC39 Pipeline Operator – Hack vs. F# by magicalist on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @07:43PM (#28533105)

> I am so glad this argument has not been winning out in the JavaScript language design community. There are so many wonderful constructs that have been added in the last 20 years that are just sorter ways to write things that could mostly already be done in the language.

Beware of survival bias, though. There have been many proposals that aren't part of JS today.

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