Consider adopting for..of instead of each..as for iteration

[samdesota]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I've been adopting svelte on a new project, really loving the simplicity of the design, with just enough power to make complex problems elegant.

One frustration as a beginner, the "each..as" syntax, which feels like it may have been inspired by PHP, feels out of place and I can't get my muscle memory to get the order right coming from JavaScript. Even after using svelte for a couple of weeks, I still write it backwards {#each item as items} almost every time and feels like a foreign construct in JavaScript land when the existing keywords "for..of" along with the reversed order feel they would be just as easy to use, but easier for JS developers.

I understand the declarative semantics are slightly more natural for each..as. In this case, however, I feel there would be less friction if Svelte used for..of.

Describe the solution you'd like
To make adoption easier and and to better meld with JS, introduce a new syntax:

{#for value of values}
{/for}

Which is exactly equivalent to

{#each values as value}
{/each}

Perhaps, if this is something that other users agree with strongly, the each syntax could be depreciated in a future version of Svelte.

How important is this feature to you?
Not critical obviously, but I believe it would make Svelte easier to adopt.

Thanks!

[vaheqelyan]

+1

[pngwn]

I’m afraid this isn’t something we are interested in. We don’t want to add two different sets of syntax for exactly the same thing. This has been discussed quite a bit in the past.

[mindplay-dk]

We don’t want to add two different sets of syntax for exactly the same thing.

This came up in #14133 as well, but you already have two syntaxes for many things - for the most part, this seems to be by design, providing small syntactical abbreviations.

Not that this is any argument for adding more syntax alternatives - but it's maybe not a bullet proof argument for the confusing inconsistencies with JS loop constructs. I don't think that was entirely by design? At least, does not seem to align well with Svelte's general philosophy of leaning close to JS.

In my opinion, the current syntax should be discouraged, and preserved only for backwards compatibility, in favor of something that looks and works like for..in and for..of.

JS devs would instantly feel more at home with this. 🙂

This has been discussed quite a bit in the past.

That probably means it's an issue?