Partial application should be bound (like bound functions)

[dead-claudia]

It's really confusing to have code like this constantly throw TypeErrors:

class Walker
    (@visitors) ->

    walkList: (list) !->
        list
        |> filter (.type of @visitors)
        |> each @walk

    # more methods

The problem is this partial function:

(.type of @visitors)

It looks like it should be bound to the current instance, equivalent to this code:

(node) ~> node.type of @visitors  # bound

It's really equivalent to this, which was a rather unexpected gotcha:

(node) -> node.type of @visitors  # not bound

This gotcha is a little misleading. It feels like a small fix, but I don't know a lot about the internal compiler structure.

[igl]

Aye. Those tiny implicit funcs should behave like es6-equal-rockets =>
Another fix would probably be not using classes and shitthis at all.

[vendethiel]

Alright, I think I agree here.

[dead-claudia]

My initial workaround was this:

walkList: (list) !->
    {visitors} = @
    list
    |> filter (.type of visitors)
    |> each @walk

I ultimately ended up working around it by using inner functions, which helped me refactor it to be more functional rather than CoffeeScript-ish OO.

module.exports = (visitors, ast) !-->
   walkList = each walk, filter (.type of visitors)

   # more methods

The semantics seem to be a bug, potentially a design oversight in the language, but the workaround eventually helped surface a bad smell in my code.

I still say partial functions should be lexically bound (like ES6 arrow functions).

[summivox]

Okay. After writing a patch that implements this behavior, I realized that it might not always be what you expect. Consider this:

o = a: 1, f: (@a =)

Here unbound this is intended.

My feelings:

• A bound this feels "right" and might be more common [citation needed], since these implicit functions are intended for writing quick inline lambdas (where you would assume bound this), not methods
• Syntax to support both bound and unbound might be overkill? Crazy idea: pick another sigil for bound this