Discussion on: The Quest for ReactiveScript

[Ryan Carniato]

That's interesting. Scares me a bit. Part of me really wants to make mutation(assignment) special and isolated but I just might not be letting go enough to fully embrace this thinking. Would it ever be difficult to reverse the derivations? Sure subtracting 1 from b is easy enough. I just wonder if that wouldn't always be the case.

[3Shain]

It only makes sense if the mapping is a bijection (math term). It's a really rare property, meaning zero information loss.

[Jin]

No, It's very common. We can bind local property with part of json which bind with local storage as example. So write to property will change json at local storage and affects to same property of another instance of same app. Example:

class Profile {

    @ $mol_mem
    store() {
        return new $mol_store_local({
            profile: { name: 'Anon' }
        })
    }

    @ $mol_mem
    name( next?: string ) {
        return this.store().sub( 'profile' ).value( 'name', next )
    }

}

const profile = new Profile

profile.name() // 'Anon'
profile.name( 'Jin' ) // 'Jin'
// restart app
profile.name() // 'Jin'
localStorage.getItem( 'profile', '{ "name": "Anon" }' )

[3Shain]

Bi-directional bindings re-invented? Fair enough.

[Jin]

It's the lens in general. See JS example:

let _a = 10
const a = ( next = 10 )=> return _a = next
const b = ( next )=> a( next === undefined ? undefined : next - 1 ) + 1

a(20);
Assert.AreEqual(21, b());

b(20);
Assert.AreEqual(19, a());

We actively use this that approach in this way:

class App {

    // it's signal
    @ $mol_mem
    static a( next = 10 ) { return next }

    // it's derivation but with same api as signal
    @ $mol_mem
    static b( next ) {
        return this.a( next === undefined ? undefined : next - 1 ) + 1
    }

}

App.a(20);
Assert.AreEqual(21, App.b());

App.b(20);
Assert.AreEqual(19, App.a());