A year back I dropped a proposal idea at the EcmaScript discussion list, I hope it get's picked up sometime.

My idea is that `let`, `var` and `const` return the value(s) being assigned. Basically I miss being able to declare variables in the assertion part of `if` blocks that are scoped only during the `if()` block existence (including `else` blocks).

Something along these lines:

    if( let row = await db.findOne() ) {
         // row available here
    }

    // row does not exist here

The current alternative is to declare the variable outside the `if()` block, but I believe that is inelegant and harder to read, and also requires you to start renaming variables (ie. row1, row2...) due them going over their intended scope.

As previous art, Golang's:

      if x:=foo(); x>50 {
        // x is here
      }
      else {
        // x is here too
      }
      
      // x is not scoped here

And Perl's

      if( ( my $x = foo() ) > 50 ) {
           print $x
      }