My feeling is that it's strange the way classes have been implemented, which is, as you say, as kind of thin wrappers around functions. I don't understand the idea behind that approach. This properties transform thing now seems to be doubling down on that initial strangeness. I should probably do some additional reading to try to find out what the story is behind these decisions. Looking at it from the point of view of an "end user" programmer, it's hard for me to understand what the underlying logic is. If they want to implement the idea of a "class," why not do so with semantics that are more familiar? It would have the added benefit that the class properties syntax would presumably not be needed.
The story behind this is that the specification of the JavaScript language is closely tied to what browser vendors are willing to implement. For a feature to land in JavaScript, vendors must first provide native support for it (which is a long, error-prone and sometimes difficult process).
So the reasoning behind these thin wrappers and weird syntax is that they're easier and faster to implement.
That said, some things could have used more time and thought put into them (ex. auto-binding of class functions/methods), as once something has made it into the specification changing/removing it is sometimes impossible (vendors also strive for maximum backward-compatibility).
My feeling is that it's strange the way classes have been implemented, which is, as you say, as kind of thin wrappers around functions. I don't understand the idea behind that approach. This properties transform thing now seems to be doubling down on that initial strangeness. I should probably do some additional reading to try to find out what the story is behind these decisions. Looking at it from the point of view of an "end user" programmer, it's hard for me to understand what the underlying logic is. If they want to implement the idea of a "class," why not do so with semantics that are more familiar? It would have the added benefit that the class properties syntax would presumably not be needed.
The story behind this is that the specification of the JavaScript language is closely tied to what browser vendors are willing to implement. For a feature to land in JavaScript, vendors must first provide native support for it (which is a long, error-prone and sometimes difficult process).
So the reasoning behind these thin wrappers and weird syntax is that they're easier and faster to implement.
That said, some things could have used more time and thought put into them (ex. auto-binding of class functions/methods), as once something has made it into the specification changing/removing it is sometimes impossible (vendors also strive for maximum backward-compatibility).
Thank you, that’s a really helpful perspective!