this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Option C. The value NaN compares unequal to every value, even itself. This breaks one of the rules of what equality even means (that every value must be equal to itself, the "reflexivity" axiom). It is for this reason (among others, ~~equality~~ "partial" equivalence between values of different types? 🤮) Rust needed to have PartialEq. See IEEE 754 for more details.

Why typeof null is "object"? Because it is defined so: https://tc39.es/ecma262/multipage/ecmascript-language-expressions.html#sec-typeof-operator

5. If val is null, return "object".

As for the rationale behind the choice, it might have something to do with "Prototypal inherience" the language has. https://tc39.es/ecma262/multipage/overview.html#sec-objects

Every object created by a constructor has an implicit reference (called the object's prototype) to the value of its constructor's "prototype" property. Furthermore, a prototype may have a non-null implicit reference to its prototype, and so on; this is called the prototype chain.

We can understand this to mean that prototype chains are null terminated ;)

For example:

> Object.getPrototypeOf({}) === Object.prototype
true
> Object.getPrototypeOf(Object.getPrototypeOf({}))
null
> Object.getPrototypeOf(null)        TypeError: not an object

Uhh...

Now, let's go to some abstract algebra. All good (closed) binary operations we deal with have an identity or neutral value. For example: addition has 0, multiplication has 1, boolean and has true, boolean or or xor has false. Performing these operations with the neutral value does not change the other operand: for example, x + 0 == x, a * 1 == a, true && b == b and so on. If you admit min and max as operators, you can see why ∞ and -∞ are the neutral values, respectively: min(∞, x) == x and max(-∞, y) == y for every (real) value of x and y. Observe how Array.prototype.reduce works (with its second argument) for inspiration on why and how all this matters: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/reduce

For mathematicians: closed, because the operators are maps S × S →S, to exclude <, > etc. as they map to Bool. Oh, they are relations, bla bla .... real numbers, we don't want to deal with other total orders here, there should be some way to call orders that have both top and bottom values, complex numbers don't have orders (usual ones, are there unusual ones?), bla bla bla

As for the last one, sigh.. https://tc39.es/ecma262/multipage/abstract-operations.html#sec-islooselyequal

Oh, that !s in there aren't boolean not.. they are.. (looks it up) argh, read it yourself https://tc39.es/ecma262/multipage/notational-conventions.html#sec-returnifabrupt-shorthands

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

Me, wasting my time explaining an ECMAScript meme.. I be like, I need to somehow justify the time spent learning about all of these.. it was the language I started my programming journey with.. sigh

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I'm no expert and I know that javascript is full of wtf moments, but please.. Let it be B

It's not gong to be B, it's it.

[–] ImplyingImplications 72 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It is true. Math.min() returns positive Infinity when called with no arguments and Math.max() returns Negative Infinity when called with no arguments. Positive Infinity > Negative Infinity.

Math.min() works something like this

def min(numbers):
  r = Infinity
  for n in numbers:
    if n < r:
      r = n
  return r

I'm guessing there's a reason they wanted min() to be able to be called without any arguments but I'm sure it isn't a good one.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So, the language isn't compiled (or wasn't originally) so they couldn't make min() be an error that only a developer saw, it has to be something that the runtime on the end-user system dealt with. So, it had to be assigned some value. Under those restrictions, it is the most mathematically sound value. It makes miniumum-exactly-2(x, min(<...>)) be exactly the same as min(x, <...>), even when the "<...>" has no values.

As a developer, I see a lot of value in static analysis, including refusing to generate output for sufficiently erroneous results of static analysis, so I don't like using JS, and the language that I tinker with will definitely have a separate compilation step and reject the equivalent of min(). But, if I HAD to assign something like that a value, it probably would be a representation of infinity, if we had one (probably will due to IEEE floats).

HTH

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The language not being compiled has nothing to do with error handling. You could have a min function that operates on dynamic arrays (e.g. std::min_element in C++ or min() in Python).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Not having a separate compilation step absolutely affects error handling. With a compilation step, you can have errors that will only be seen by and must be address by a developer prior to run time. Without one, the run time system, must assign some semantics to the source code, no matter how erroneous it is.

No matter what advisory "signature" you imagine for a function, JS has to assign some run time semantics to that function being called incorrectly. Compiled languages do not have to provide a run time semantics to for signatures that can be statically checked.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I’m guessing there’s a reason they wanted min() to be able to be called without any arguments but I’m sure it isn’t a good one.

It not a totally unreasonable definition. For example it preserves nice properties like min(a.concat(b)) == min([min(a), min(b)]).

Obviously the correct thing to do is to return an optional type, like Rust does. But ... yeah I mean considering the other footguns in Javascript (e.g. the insane implicit type coersion) I'd say they didn't do too badly here.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)
Math.min() == Infinity
Math.max() == -Infinity

Wtf is going on JS...

edit: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Math/min

Its the min value of the input params, or Infinity.

[–] wise_pancake 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Math.min.length is 2, which weakly signals that it's designed to handle at least two parameters

Why would they even define this value?

Note: I’m not a js dev, do most functions have length?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I am also not a JS dev, we possibly aren't brain damaged enough to understand the perfection.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Most people don't use JS because they think it's perfect... they use it because it's the language that works on web browsers... or because thier coworkers made something in it... or because the library that does what they want uses it...

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I develop with JS? All I can say is I need more brain damage to understand where is out

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Just keep developing with it, you'll get CTE soon.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's C, NaN is never equal to itself in floating point, that's not just a JS thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

No, it's JS

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Narrator: "It wasn't B."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Fun fact, even tho B is False, Math.min > Math.max is true

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

That is not a fun fact. How do I unsubscribe :D

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

I also am not familiar with javascript anymore....precisely because of this, exact, insane bullshit.

B... and/or C... evaluating as FALSE are the only things that... should even kind of make sense, according to my brain.

Though at this point in my life, I have unironically had a good number of concussions and contusions, so ... well you'd think that would help with JS development.

Javascript is insanity, and I am still convinced it is at least 40% responsible for Notch losing his goddamned mind.

'null' is somehow an object. because fuck you, thats why!

Is... 0 == '' ... is that two single quotes ' ' ?

Or one double quote " ?

If... it is one double quote... that wouldn't even evaluate, as it would just be an empty string without a defined end...

But if it was two single quotes... that would just be a proper empty string... and because of forced type coercion, both 0 and '' are FALSE when compared with ==, but not when compared with ===, because that ignores forced type coercion...

https://www.w3docs.com/snippets/javascript/when-to-use-double-or-single-quotes-in-javascript.html

Oh my fucking god WHY?!

Just fucking use one special character to delimit strings!

Don't have two that don't work together and also behave differently even when you pick just one of them... GraaaghhH!

brb, figuring out where Larry Ellison lives...

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 week ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 week ago (2 children)

No, it's Javascript, keep up

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Javascript is basically just C with some syntactical sugar, right? RIGHT?!?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Math.min isn’t the minimum integer; it’s the minimum of a list (and max visa versa)… the min/max of an undefined list is the same… IDK what it is, but this probably the most reasonable of the “WTFs” they could have put there i think… other languages would throw an exception or not compile (which JS definitely SHOULD do instead of this, buuuuut lots of JS has aversions to errors)

*edit: okay the curiosity was killing me: Math.min() is Infinity and Math.max() is -Infinity

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

That explains it then. It could be mislead for -inf and +inf

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] skisnow 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That one wasn't the one I had issues with, since the concept is essentially the same across all languages. We say it's false because we can't conclusively say that it's true. Same as the reason why null != null in SQL.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

It also makes a lot of conditional expressions less complicated because comparisons of all kind against NaN return false.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The one option that is mandated by an ISO standard.

Besides, if max and min are going to have a value without any parameter, it has to be exactly those Javascript uses. Unless you have a type that define other bounds for your numbers. And null always have a pointer type (that is object in Javascript), for the same reason that NaN always have a number type.

The only one that is bad on that list is D.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

typeof null === "object" was actually a bug in the early implementations, and they decided to keep it in the spec: https://2ality.com/2013/10/typeof-null.html

(see the comment from Brendan Eich)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Tony Hoare: "Introducing NULL was a billion-dollar mistake"

Brendan Eich: "Hold my undefined"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

We had one null, yes. But what about second null?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Maybe D is too single quotes 0 == ''

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I love the two lonely downvotes on this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Merging the upvotes and downvotes is the best option

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

nah, it's more fun this way.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

If you thought this was fun you might like https://jsisweird.com/ with similar questions

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (10 children)
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