Are you sure that self is web compatible and that adding it to some environments will not break anything?

[zloirock]

For example, I'm worried about NodeJS - in some cases, someone detects the environment as NodeJS like typeof self === 'undefined' && typeof process === 'object'.

Related: zloirock/core-js#1118

[ljharb]

It's definitely not; we explored this in the globalThis proposal.

[zloirock]

@ljharb could you provide the results of this research? For example, here you provide only some links to global and window.

[ljharb]

tc39/proposal-global#11 (comment)

There's a number of examples of window and self both implying a browser, such as https://github.com/Microsoft/automatic-graph-layout/blob/ab371280000f4d85eeedc1899e6faaa66ccad009/GraphLayout/MsaglSharpkit/WebMsagl/Msagl/sharpkit_pre.js . In addition, var self = this is too common a pattern for self to be a safe bet.

[zloirock]

And here is no self in examples.

[ljharb]

"such as" - that was one example. I recall seeing hundreds of them with a trivial github search; you're welcome to do the same.

[zloirock]

Just searching something on GitHub - is not proper research. I hope that it was not your motivation at the time of this proposal? After exploring some examples of such code, I found that they are used only on tests or not used at all. However, sure, with a big chance somewhere it's used in some code where it can break something.

[ljharb]

If you're aware of another way to do research that isn't fantastically expensive, I'd love to know about it.

[zloirock]

I'm awaiting at least some real examples of what it can break. At least some links to GitHub with an explanation. Otherwise, it's just empty words, not "research". I don't think that it's fantastically expensive. I found some tenths of such cases on GitHub for some minutes - but I don't see the danger in any one of them - however, sure, it's not exhaustively - otherwise, this issue wouldn't be here in this form.

[zloirock]

However, for NodeJS it's not principal since they can implement it in a new major release - it's not browsers and breaking changes are possible.

[zloirock]

@jasnell @lucacasonato

[zloirock]

The final attempt to get feedback, @jasnell @lucacasonato.

[jasnell]

We've removed self