Interest in aligning with ES6 Promise semantics?

[stefanpenner]

I understand this is objective-c land, but as promises in JavaScript are now part of a formal standard, is there interest in aligning this project with those semantics?

One very specific and confusing difference is how the promises compose.

in ES6: there is no concept of a promise fulfilling with another promise, when a promise is to resolve another promise, it merely assimilates the new promises state.

Simple example:

var rejectedPromise = Promise.reject(new Error);
var promise = Promise.resolve(rejectedPromise)

promise.then(function(){
  // will not invoke
}).catch(reason) {
  // will invoke, with the reason of the assimilated promise
  // to propagate the rejection
  throw reason;

  // return to "catch" and handle the rejection, providing a new success value"
  return 1;

  // return a promise, to "retry"
  return User.find(1);
}); 

Why is this useful?

It encourages encapsulation, and mimics synchronous programmings try/catch

example continued:

sync:

function fetch() {
  var something = ajax('/something');
  var somethingElse = ajax('/something-else/' + something.id);
  // if either attempt throws, fetch throws
  return something;
}

async

function fetch() {
  return ajax('/something').then(function(value) {
    return ajax('/something-else/' + value.id);
  });
}
// if either attempt rejects, the promise returned from fetch rejects

// refactor further
function fetchSomethingElse(value) {
  return ajax('/something-else/' + value.id);
}

function fetch() {
  return ajax('/something').then(fetchSomthingElse);
}
// identical semantics.

To summarize, these chaining and assimilation semantics encourage best practices. Although this library is clearly not JavaScript, aligning only improves mindshare on the topic.

[couchdeveloper]

I understand this is objective-c land, but as promises in JavaScript are now part of a formal standard, is there interest in aligning this project with those semantics?

RXPromise tries to follow the Promises/A+ spec. Especially, regarding your question, it tries to accomplish this:

"If x (the value which is used to revolve the promise) is a thenable, it attempts to make promise (the receiver) adopt the state of x, under the assumption that x behaves at least somewhat like a promise."

In other words, in RXPromise, if a pending promise B will be resolved with another promise A (either pending or resolved), the promise B "adopts the state" of promise A. More precisely, the set of continuations registered for A and B will execute on their respective execution context when the promise A gets resolved, and both promises now have the same state (either fulfilled or rejected - and in RXPromise possibly cancelled).

Cancellation will be handled as well in a similar fashion. If promise B is already cancelled when the implementation adopts the state, promise A will be cancelled as well. Likewise, when the cancellation on promise B happens after the adoption, promise B also gets cancelled and vice versa.

If I take your example:

RXPromise* something = [[RXPromise alloc] initWithResult:original_error];  // state is rejected
RXPromise* promise = [[RXPromise alloc] init];
[promise resolveWithResult:something];   // note: will invoke synced_bind:

promise.then(nil, ^id(NSError* error) {
    // Parameter `error` is the value of the assimilated promise `something`:
    assert(original_error == error);

    Then you have the following options:
    // return a value (maybe be nil) in order to proceed normally:
    return @"OK";   // or: return nil;

    OR: 
    // "rethrow" the error:
    return error;

    OR: 
    // "throw" another error:
    NSError* newError = [NSError errorWithDomain:  ...];
    return newError;
});

[stefanpenner]

I believe my confusion/concern boils done to:

https://github.com/couchdeveloper/RXPromise/blob/6466cec5cae1f61a5c056ec360486320322915e0/RXPromise%20Libraries/Source/RXPromise.mm#L879-L896

1. promise acting as a deferred (exposing its private resolve/reject)
2. exposing both fulfill and resolve (I would like to suggest "resolve" be the only one of the two)

Everything else I have encountered so far, (as I get used to the Objective-c'isms) feels good, good job.

[couchdeveloper]

promise acting as a deferred (exposing its private resolve/reject)

Well, yes. Possibly, a solution would be to have a class RXDeferred which subclasses RXPromise. This would make the API more clean. However, since in this case a RXPromise IS_A RXDeferred actually, anyone can send "deferred" messages to a promise, and it would act accordingly as a deferred.

Another requirement is to let a resolver easily subclass a RXPromise (respectively a Deferred, it it were split). There are a few important use cases which require a subclass of RXPromise. So, splitting RXPromise into a Promise and a Deferred, should guarantee that this is still possible.

Not sure why I really chose this design, perhaps since Objective-C usually likes to use conventions over, well, compiler errors. So, here the convention for a consumer is, "don't resolve a promise" ;) A couple months ago, I implemented a C++ version of a promise where I chose a to make the deferred API private, very much as an effect of a knee-jerk reaction. So, I believe this design choice has something to do with the kind of language ;)

But seriously, I will investigate the options to make the deferred part a subclass and thus a "declared private" API for the consumer, unless you know a better solution. I would also prefer a "light weight" implementation relying on conventions over a "strict" implementation which could only be accomplished with a more complex class layout.

exposing both fulfill and resolve (I would like to suggest "resolve" be the only one of the two)

Strictly, if there is a resolveWithResult: method, it makes the API fulfillWithValue: and the API rejectWithReason: redundant. Nonetheless, I need the implementations of both. IFF there will be a change in the Promise/Deferred API, I may consider to make the API of the deferred more concise and crisp as you suggested.

Everything else I have encountered so far, (as I get used to the Objective-c'isms) feels good, good job.

Thanks :)

[stefanpenner]

[RXPromise promiseWithResult:anotherPromise]

should mimic the ES spec's Promise.resolve

It should accept a value, a promise, or an error. When accepting a promise as it's argument the newly constructed promise's fate should be that of the promise passed as the argument.

https://github.com/couchdeveloper/RXPromise/blob/6466cec5cae1f61a5c056ec360486320322915e0/RXPromise%20Libraries/Source/RXPromise.mm#L867

this is part of my first example:

var error = new Error();
var rejectedPromise = Promise.reject(error);
var promise = Promise.resolve(rejectedPromise)

promise.then(function(value) {
  // never invoked
}, function(reason) {
  reason === error // => true
});

[stefanpenner]

Strictly, if there is a resolveWithResult: method, it makes the API fulfillWithValue: and the API rejectWithReason: redundant. Nonetheless, I need the implementations of both. IFF there will be a change in the Promise/Deferred API, I may consider to make the API of the deferred more concise and crisp as you suggested.

Ya it would appear that in objective-c land we need only the following:

[RXPromise resolveWithResult:...] and [RXPromise promiseWithResult:...]

Where [RXPromise resolveWithResult:foo] is basically just

 if ([foo class] == self) {
   return foo
} else {
  return [self promiseWithResult:foo];
}

In theory though, wonder if we need both, resolveWithResult may be sufficient (in objective-c)