Re: [WebIDL] Remove string constants

• From: Cameron McCormack <cam@mcc.id.au>
• Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:16:06 +1100
• To: Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>
• CC: public-script-coord@w3.org
• Message-ID: <4EE16F66.1060704@mcc.id.au>

On 20/10/11 1:25 PM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> Strings are intrinsically meaningful and therefore have no need for
> constants in APIs for the platform. See XMLHttpRequest.responseType and
> the <canvas> 2D API for examples. We should remove string constants so
> people (e.g. public-web-perf) will not use them and introduce
> inconsistent APIs.

This sounds like an argument against string constants used for enum-like 
values.  (We already convinced the Web Perf folks not to use string 
constants in this case.)  What about something like:

   interface A {
     const DOMString HTMLNS = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
   };

There are no string constants currently like this (a convenience because 
people have difficulty remembering such strings), so my question is 
whether we want to disallow them.

Received on Friday, 9 December 2011 02:16:39 UTC