It’s a basic language construct upon which the entire functional programming paradigm can be built in languages that do not support it natively. Sometimes a problem is better expressed in said paradigm, but the language prevents you from properly exploiting it’s capabilities. This is one of the many ways eval *can* be used for the better of your programming speed, debug-ability and general style of programming.

So please, next time you wish to share your opinion on eval, try to think of the grand picture this language construct fits in, and don’t spread lies about otherwise finely crafted implementations thereof.

var myObject = {};

$H({
‘a’: 1,
‘b’: 2,
‘c’: 3
}).each(function(v, k) {
myObject[k] = v;
});

A lot of people think you have to do something like:

var myObject = {};

$H({
‘a’: 1,
‘b’: 2,
‘c’: 3
}).each(function(v, k) {
eval(‘myObject.’ + k + ‘ = ‘ + v);
});

Avoid eval! Eval is evil.