[Javascript] Literal array declarations

[David Dorward]

On 9 Nov 2009, at 07:51, Troy III Ajnej wrote:
> Some years ago
> anArray = []; //would mean nothing!
> In fact it would most probably throw an error!
> Array literals are introduced in javascript v1.2. Yet
> IE claims to support them since v.1.1.

There is a long history of proprietary browser features being adopted  
by the wider market and standardised. I suspect that is JScript 1.1  
rather than JavaScript 1.1 though.

> Using array literals instead of array objects whenever
> possible, is a future precaution but backward incompatible
> scripting convention.

In general, there is no need to be backwards compatible to that degree.

> Its all because of JSON

No, it isn't.

It isn't part of the syntax because of JSON because JSON came later.

It isn't preferred because of JSON — other mails in this thread have  
already explained the real reason.

> , since Array
> object will act and might accidentaly trigger a premature
> eval of your literal notations. And that's all there is
> regarding this jslint remark.

What? Could you elaborate?

> No real Javascript reasons sit behind this preferrence.

No, there are real JavaScript reasons, they were explained elsewhere  
in the thread. It isn't a requirement of the language, but the reasons  
are based on how the language works.

> JSON is being considered a language today.

It's a data serialisation format. It is as much as language as XML  
(which is to say, it is a language, but shouldn't be confused with a  
programming language).

> But I dont
> see a convincing reason of why or how, when its nothing
> but a regular javascript Method.

It's a simple way to represent a complex data structure in text that  
can be quickly parsed in JavaScript and has libraries available to  
parse it in every major programming language (and a lot of other  
programming languages which aren't considered major).

-- 
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk