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Will ECMAScript 6 obsolete all my knowledge?

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  Will ECMAScript 6 obsolete all my knowledge? bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2014-02-25 08:18 -0800
    Re: Will ECMAScript 6 obsolete all my knowledge? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-02-25 18:18 +0100
    Re: Will ECMAScript 6 obsolete all my knowledge? John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2014-02-26 16:14 +0000
    Re: Will ECMAScript 6 obsolete all my knowledge? Jim T. <x@y.z> - 2014-03-04 12:24 -0500

#23273 — Will ECMAScript 6 obsolete all my knowledge?

I just read on the web that ECMAScript 6 will have classes. Does this mean a fundamentally different way of programming? Will I have to buy new books for this, and throw away all of my old knowledge? I'm NOT comfortable right now with OOP at all, I don't fundamentally *like* it, so should I just wait educating myself till all this class stuff comes out?


Thanks.

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#23286

bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Please fix this.

> I just read on the web that ECMAScript 6 will have classes.

Where?

> Does this mean a fundamentally different way of programming?

Depends.

> Will I have to buy new books for this,

No.  You do not even have to buy the old books; and you should not, because 
most of them are bad.

> and throw away all of my old knowledge?

No.

> I'm NOT comfortable right now with OOP at all, I don't fundamentally
> *like* it, so should I just wait educating myself till all this class
> stuff comes out?

No.  Implementations of ECMAScript Editions 1 through 3, and 5.x, *are* 
object-oriented programming languages.  They just use prototype-based 
instead of class-based inheritance.  (Microsoft JScript .NET and 
Macromedia/Adobe ActionScript 2.0+ are implementations of Netscape’s 
proposal for ECMAScript Edition 4, therefore support class-based inheritance 
as well.)

-- 
PointedEars

Twitter: @PointedEars2
Please do not Cc: me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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#23326

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:18:45 -0800 (PST), bit-naughty@hotmail.com
wrote:

>I just read on the web that ECMAScript 6 will have classes. 
>Does this mean a fundamentally different way of programming? 
>Will I have to buy new books for this, and throw away all of my old knowledge? 

It's unlikely that *any* new features in ECMAScript would make all the
world's e-commerce sites drop dead. Anything you knew about before
will still work. Use of new features would be optional.


>I'm NOT comfortable right now with OOP at all, I don't fundamentally *like* it, 
>so should I just wait educating myself till all this class stuff comes out?

There's a lot of mysticism written about OOP, so beware! At it's
simplest it boils down to this :

Which would you rather do with dates ?


A. Non-OOP
// Variable
  var t = DateSetYear(2014, 1, 26);  // t holds ms since start of 1970

// Global functions
  var month_number = DateGetMonth(t);
  var ymdString = DateToString(t);

If you mistakenly write x instead of t it's not an ECMAScript error.


B. OOP
// Variable
  var t = new Date(2014, 1, 26);  // t holds the date & time, somehow

// Object functions
  var month_number = t.getMonth(t);
  var ymdString = t.toString(t);
  
You don't need to know what a date value looks like, nor where it's
held. t knows that, and how to act on it.

What's more, it's the same code whether dates are defined using the
'class' keyword or using a prototype chain.

  John

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#23391

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:18:45 -0800 (PST), bit-naughty@hotmail.com
wrote:

>I just read on the web that ECMAScript 6 will have classes. Does this mean a fundamentally different way of programming? Will I have to buy new books for this, and throw away all of my old knowledge? I'm NOT comfortable right now with OOP at all, I don't fundamentally *like* it, so should I just wait educating myself till all this class stuff comes out?

As has been pointed out, you already can do OOP in ECMAScript.
Speaking as an old fart who initially resisted OOP I strongly suggest
you learn it. It make life SO much easier.

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