Discuss
  • Thoughts on Partial Application

Thoughts on Partial Application

# Michael Rosefield (7 years ago)

I was looking through the notes on the last meeting, in particular the bit about Partial Application: rwaldron.github.io/tc39-notes/2017-09_sep-28.html#13i-partial-application

The current sticking point was that the syntax looked like a function call instead of function definition, but my first thought was that this could be fixed by using a simple token either before the function name, or between it and the brackets.

For example, given a current function foo, the current proposal would have

const bar = foo(1, ?) // roughly: bar = x => foo(1,x)

While the choice of token is arbitrary, I'll go with '@' (Because I've got to pick something, and it kind of suggests application. It's not important! ). I would suggest having one of these two as Partial Application syntax:

const bar = @foo(1, ?) const bar = foo@(1, ?) // my preferred version

Are there any issues with solving the issue in this manner? I know that adding new syntax unnecessarily should be avoided, but this is for clarity.

Another that's occurred to me is to allow a shorthand for arrow functions:

const baz1 = (x, 1, ...y) => foo(x, 1, ...y)

const baz2 = (?, 1, ...) => foo // shorthand for above

This would require parsing to check the RHS is just a function identifier, but does suggest the intent of a function that passes arguments to a function.

Michael

# Алексей (7 years ago)

There is already an issue on that rbuckton/proposal-partial-application#13

2017-12-04 15:03 GMT+02:00 Michael Rosefield <rosyatrandom at gmail.com>:

# Michael Rosefield (7 years ago)

Ha! So there is....