RE: Race conditions in HTML 5?

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008, Bonner, Matt wrote:
>
> Ian Hickson wrote:
> > So do I; if you search the source of the document you'll find the 
> > occasional mention of a queue in the comments. I haven't figured out 
> > exactly where it should go yet but basically anything that waits for 
> > scripts to finish, including in particular event firing, callbacks, 
> > and timers, will use this queue.
> 
> A page-global execution queue could work as a solution, but will require 
> considerable specification

That's not a problem.


> and probably need to allow some HTML author control over execution 
> order, if it's to be effective.

I don't really see why. Browsers already use this model, and it has 
worked without problems so far.


> One can imagine without trouble an web application author wanting e.g. 
> the event-source script to execute (retrieving data) before the 
> application cache script (saving application state locally), but the 
> <html> cache manifest would of course appear first in the HTML file.

They would execute not based on the order they appear in the file, but in 
the order that the network responds, so I don't see this as a problem.


The queueing issue is on my list; see the bottom of this list of e-mails:

   http://www.whatwg.org/issues/#scripts-misc

(The ones labelled "Race conditions in HTML 5?".)


> I must agree with Laura Carlson, a clear explanation of the issue 
> tracking process would be a great help.

Yeah, I have to admit that at this point I'm rather confused about where 
I'm supposed to be looking to have an unambiguous list of issues to go 
through. Originally it was the wiki, then people put lots of placeholder 
pages on there so it became no longer a clear list. Then we added the 
tracker, but then people added issues that the WG hadn't discussed, and 
people objected when I marked issues as issues I'd dealt with to the best 
of my ability. Now we also have a Bugzilla issue tracker. At this point I 
really have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. It would be useful if 
the chairs could give me an unambiguous URL where I can see the list of 
issues I'm expected to go through, and a way to take them off the list 
that I see; and if people had a clear set of steps for how to add things 
to the list.

In the meantime, if people want to raise issues in an unambiguous way, 
sending an e-mail to the WHATWG list is a way to guarantee that I will 
consider the feedback and send a reply. You can join this list here:

   http://www.whatwg.org/mailing-list#specs

The list of open issues opened in that manner is visible here:

   http://www.whatwg.org/issues/

However, I really would like the issue tracking process to be clarified so 
that we can make productive progress in the working group.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 10 June 2008 22:03:29 UTC