Private Properties Syntax

[pumano]

I have opinion against syntax for private properties and methods in this proposal.

Many languages have keywords private, protected, public. I suggest to add that keywords against # syntax. It's looks like you guys reinventing the wheel, but we have that syntax many years in languages like Java or C++ or PHP etc.
And making JavaScript with "something" new is harm to JavaScript. I think Javascript need to be more closer to other languages like Java or C# or TypeScript (where we have private/protected/public modificators). And don't create your "own" things.

[bakkot]

See the FAQ for private fields.

In short: of course we started out trying to make it work with the same syntax used in other languages. That turns out not to work.

[littledan]

At the next TC39 meeting, I'll raise this concern again. However, I'm not sure how much more ground there is to cover here--this has already been thoroughly discussed in the private fields issues.

[dinoboff]

@littledan I understand why access to private fields needs a specific syntax, but that's not true for the declaration. Was the possibility of having a keyword like private x used to declare a private field and using #x only to access it discussed?

[bakkot]

@dinoboff See the FAQ for private fields.

[dinoboff]

So private x would lead to bad assumption. Can't an other keyword be used instead?

[bakkot]

We discussed the possibility of an additional keyword for declarations at TC39. Ultimately, we were pretty firm that the declaration should include the #, so that declaration would mirror use and to encourage the mental model that the # is part of the field name. At that point, we felt an additional keyword would just be additional noise for not much benefit.

[monolithed]

In my opinion the sigil # looks like a syntactic noise and I'd to see something more compatible with TypeScript and other languages.

class Foo {
   private x = 1;

   public y () {
        return this->x;
   }
}


let foo = new Foo();

foo.y(); // 1

Why not to use the arrow -> instead of the dot .?

[ljharb]

@monolithed for your first question, please read the FAQ (this is also answered about 3 comments up)