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Comment by lhorie | Hacker News Reader

>> the goal is to not pollute the global namespace

Right, like this, I guess

  new function() {
    var jQuery = ...
  }

I think this document is either omitting the important details or it simply doesn't address the namespacing problem correctly. Remember when Prototype.js had a document.getElementsByClassName? Fun times when that broke.

>> the module/export/load are a part of an opt-in dialect

That doesn't seem very well thought-out. How would one access a module declared in a <script type="text/es-harmony"> from a <script type="text/javascript">? It's a pretty realistic scenario (e.g. say you have a non es-harmony codebase and you want to add a es-harmony library)

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>> I think this document is either omitting the important details or it simply doesn't address the namespacing problem correctly. Remember when Prototype.js had a document.getElementsByClassName? Fun times when that broke.

Interfering with other modules' exports is not possible. But modifying the properties of arbitrary objects is just as possible as ever. Modules are all about fixing scope, not about locking down objects.

To put it differently, the document is not a module, it's an object. The module system has nothing to do with it.

>> How would one access a module declared in a <script type="text/es-harmony"> from a <script type="text/javascript">? It's a pretty realistic scenario (e.g. say you have a non es-harmony codebase and you want to add a es-harmony library)

This is accounted for in the design. The global object is not in the scope chain of Harmony code, but it is still available to Harmony code via a standard binding in the standard library, and the Harmony modules are made available to legacy JS as module instance objects in the global object. So communication is available in both directions.

>> Harmony modules are made available to legacy JS as module instance objects in the global object.

Does this mean a module is visible like this?

  window.jQuery
  window.Prototype

That's kinda what already exists... For that matter, any variation of that (e.g. window.modules.jQuery) can be done with the patterns you mentioned at the beginning of the document.

>> The global object is not in the scope chain of Harmony code

Ah, I see. That's certainly a new feature, but what's a use case for that? I find it hard to justify giving up a few fairly common variable names just for knowing that window.i or whatever is not polluted. It kinda feels like just shifting the name collisions around.

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