RE: protected methods

>(also, btw, dojo.defineWidget() doesn't support private variables)

Fwiw, there's nothing stopping you from writing code like this in an
initializer:

function() { 
  var privateKey = "secretKey";
  var privateMatchKey = function(inKey) {
        return (inKey === privateKey); 
  }
  this.matchKey = function(inKey) { 
        return privateMatchKey(inKey); 
  }
}

I believe the correct idea is that prototype methods do not support
(so-called) private variables (usually expressed as closures on the
constructor).

Regards,
Scott J. Miles
TurboAjax Group
http://www.turboajax.com
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dojo-contributors-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:dojo-contributors-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf 
> Of Bill Keese
> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 5:27 AM
> To: dojo dev.
> Subject: Re: [dojo-contributors] protected methods
> 
> OK, my original mail must have been unclear.  Of course 
> subclasses (or whatever you want to call them) can override 
> postMixInProperties().  But you'd never have code like this:
> 
> var foo = dojo.widget.createWidget(...)
> foo.postMixInProperties();
> 
> If we were programming in java or C++ then we would make
> postMixInProperties() protected.  There's no native 
> javascript support for that (also, btw, dojo.defineWidget() 
> doesn't support private
> variables) but the API doc would be a lot nicer if it didn't list
> postMixInProperties() as though it were a method that widget 
> users (as opposed to widget writers) could use.
> 
> Adam L. Peller wrote:
> > ok, I'll bite... as long as we chain up, why can't we 
> override these?
> > postMixInProperties seemed like a good place to do overrides, for 
> > example.  Or is there just a concern that people won't chain up?
> > 
> > On 10/27/06, Bill Keese <bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> By the way, I found some good examples of protected 
> methods (or to be 
> >> pedantic, methods that subclasses override but that users aren't 
> >> supposed to call):
> >>
> >> postMixInProperties()
> >> fillInTemplate()
> >> postCreate()
> >> onResized()
> >>
> >> etc.
> >>
> >> We can't very well start putting underscores in front of 
> those method 
> >> names now.  It would be nice if we had some way to notate their 
> >> status to the parser though, so those functions showed as 
> a different 
> >> color or something.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> dojo-contributors mailing list
> >> dojo-contributors@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> http://dojotoolkit.org/mailman/listinfo/dojo-contributors

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