String keys for objects in short syntax

[nazar-pc]

I'm working with Google Closure Compiler lately and sometimes need to return objects for external consumption. In order to prevent Closure Compiler from mangling object keys I need to use strings like {'key': value} instead of {key: value}.

Would be nice if LiveScript supported compiling this:

{'whatever'}

To this:

{'whatever': whatever}

Otherwise some parts of the code become verbose very quickly.

Currently it would compile to:

{'whatever': 'whatever'}

Which makes sense, but is not so useful.

Non-obscure syntax alternatives that don't break BC would be nice too.

[rhendric]

Need to think about this one a bit. In the meantime, here's a question: what should {'foo-bar'} compile to?

• {'foo-bar': foo - bar}
• {'foo-bar': fooBar}
• {'fooBar': fooBar}

[nazar-pc]

I'd say it should literally expand to {'foo-bar': foo-bar} and compile to {'foo-bar': fooBar}. I you need camelCase key you can write it explicitly using the same syntax and the first option doesn't follow current syntax in LiveScript regarding hyphens.

[pepkin88]

Possible outcomes that I see:

• leave as it is, leaving the code more verbose :/
• leave as it is, but resigning from the property name mangling (after gzip the difference shouldn't be big) :|
• find a way, without the introduction of a new language feature (right now I couldn't find any :( )
• implement a non-breaking feature, with a new syntax (e.g. {foo-bar/} -- a mirror backslash string ^_^)
• implement a breaking feature, introduce in the next version, number of casualties: some, but low
• implement a breaking feature, introduce in a major version, where breaking changes are expected

I know there are more features, other than this one, which would be nice to modernize, but wouldn't be backward compatible. Maybe we should list them and discuss what to do with them?

[nazar-pc]

I'd vote to a major version bump just to make sure everyone reads a changelog. There is really nothing to be afraid in a major version change, especially if breaking changes are not groundbreaking, but just some nice improvements.

[pepkin88]

In that case I would like to add some modernization proposals, to include in such version. I'll pitch them soon.