Subj : Re: expando in non M$ slang To : netscape.public.mozilla.jseng From : =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Georg_Maa=DF?= Date : Thu Jan 22 2004 09:13 pm Brendan Eich wrote: > Can you give MS's (or anyone's) definition of "expando"? > > If you mean an ad-hoc property, that's one phrase used around here. > What do you mean, though? It does not mean the ad-hoc property it self but an objects facility to get new properties by assignment. In Micro$oft slang this is: "The expando modifier is used to mark a class as dynamically extensible (one that supports expando properties)." The default on non class JScript objects is expando == true. The default on class objects is expando == false. I hate Micro$oft slang. But simply speaking from "dynamically extensible" is to weak because a list (like known from C++) is also dynamically extensible but not with properties but only with new entries. So this special facility of ECMAScript is worthy to be named with a special name, but this special name should not be Micro$oft slang. The ad-hoc property is the result of this special facility. In my bloomy speech, I label an object with such a facility as "greedy object" and ad-hoc extending it's properties as "feeding the object". But this is no official naming but my bloomy paraphrase. Now I'm looking for the official naming. If there is none, which is common to this group as well as to the ECMA guys, then I suggest to discuss about how to name this to let our naming suggestion flow into Waldemars ECMA 4 draft to let it become official. Greetings, Georg -- Georg Maaß - bioshop.de D-76227 Karlsruhe, Westmarkstraße 82 HTML, XML / JavaScript, C++, Java, PHP, VB / CGI, JSP, ASP, ASP.net - The ultimate DHTML engine: http://gml-modul.sourceforge.net - http://sourceforge.net/projects/gml-modul .