Mocking private scope identifier with eval

Question

While programming a server application for multiplayer games, I got an idea for cleaning up my code a bit.

I'm heavily using the Module Pattern for my application and use a convention for calling exposed functions public[Function name] and privates private[Function name]. The public prefix helps in the return assignment:

return {
    get : publicGet
}

But the private identifier names are just for show and make calling them a bit cumbersome. However, completely removing the private prefix makes the code a bit less readable. So I thought of using the reserved private keyword as you would in, for example, Java.

For doing this I thought I could use eval like this:

var private = eval('') // Just an empty assignment so it does nothing.

So I can write my private function like this:

private function initiateGameMatchmaker(game) {
    // Code...
}

Instead of:

function privateInitiateGameMatchmaker(game) {
    // Code...
}

Would this be acceptable or do you regard this as a filthy hack and thus as a definite no-no?

Answer 1

Acceptable or not, it won't work.

private will be undefined, and private function foo(){} will throw a SyntaxError: Unexpected token function.

Don't try to mold JavaScript into the conventions of a language it's not.