Hacker News Reader

Comment by eyelidlessness | Hacker News Reader

While we’re at it, here’s some more madness… this time with booleans and numbers!

https://codepen.io/eyelidlessness/pen/yLPdLey

This one really gets to me.

    f = 0 (type: object, constructor: Number)
    0<!f = false
    0<!-f = true

I’ve tried three times to write why I think this is, and each time I get lost in my reasoning. Alas, I’ve been on mobile for this whole thread and I don’t have any more brain cells to try to code like this tonight lol

It's because `f = new Number(0)` is a boxed number (therefore it's an object), and `!f` calls ToBoolean on this object which unconditionally returns true (https://tc39.es/ecma262/#table-toboolean-conversions). `!-f` first applies unary minus, which first performs a ToNumber on the f object (which returns unboxed 0), that's negated to -0, and then ToBoolean of -0 is false.