[whatwg] DOMTokenList methods would be more useful with a space separated token list

[Rick Waldron]

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Wed, 2 May 2012, Rick Waldron wrote:
> >
> > JS APIs like this should always return the object (constructed instance
> > or not) and therefore chain implicitly.
>

Let me rephrase, I simply expect modern DOM APIs to return something useful.



>
> I understand that this is mostly a matter of taste in API design, but IMHO
> that's an anti-pattern.


If you're writing and designing specifications that will be implemented in
JavaScript, then you should design them _for_ JavaScript. Section 15 of
EcmaScript specifies more then enough "prior art" that supports my
statement above.


> It encourages poor style;


60% of the JavaScript written on the web disagrees.


> it discourages
> functional programming patterns, instead favouring state mutation
> patterns;


JavaScript is a multi-paradigm language, leave your design hangups at the
door.


it makes APIs harder to extend;


This is just outright false, considering JavaScript is probably the most
extendable and historically extended language at the API level.


> it makes APIs that do have
> useful return values inconsistent with other APIs;


elem.classList.add("foo") returns "undefined". That's hardly what I would
consider a "useful return value". Returning the element's classList
instance makes an incredible amount of rational sense.



> it is, in fact, a
> layering violation:

it attempts to shoehorn what should be a language

design feature into the API layer.
>

Much like the DOM and its weird C++ and Java influences.



>
> But I'll leave it up to the DOM guys to decide what to do for that
> interface. :-)
>

Is this group aiming to define APIs that developers will always paper over
with abstractions, guaranteeing all app code needs a good 50k just to
provide a decent API? Or shall we craft APIs that developers will actually
write code for?

Rick


>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>