Re: Coordination

On 12/04/2013 18:57 , Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:
> I'm really happy to see this thread.  The past attempts to establish
> better communications and coordination between the W3C and Ecma/TC39
> have had only limited success.  I think one cause has been a lack of
> understanding of goals, plans, progress, and processes among the
> general population of participants in the two groups.

To be fair I think that part of the problem is due to the JS-related 
work on the W3C side to be far more scattered across a host of groups 
than TC39's work. If it were, say, just WebApps working on all APIs we 
wouldn't need to have this conversation. As things stand, there is no 
"DOM side". That's something we have to work to compensate for at our end.

> 1)  At every TPAC there should be an invited presentation by a
> representative of TC39 updating the W3C community on TC39/ECMAScript
> news, recent work, and future plans.
>
> 2)  The W3C should proactively invite and encourage TC39 participants
> to attend and participate at TPACs as if they were active W3C
> participants.
>
> 3)  At some regular interval (annually, bi-annually) there should be
> a formal joint meeting between the TAG and core TC39 members.  This
> is arguably less important now that we have good cross-membership in
> the two groups but I think it is still be important to try to
> establish an official communcations path and shared vision at that
> level.

I heartily agree with the sentiment in these three proposals, but I'm 
not sure that they're the best approach.

To begin with, I can't formally speak on behalf of all the API-making 
groups but I would be very surprised if they weren't enthusiastic at the 
prospect of hosting a session dedicated to TC39 discussion. I think that 
you can consider yourselves permanently invited.

The parts I'm not sure about are about having a TPAC session and 
coordinating with the TAG. There aren't really any properly plenary 
sessions at TPAC anymore (at least there haven't been in the past two 
years), so this may not be optimal. We could reserve a dedicated "Talk 
with TC39" breakout session every year. I don't know if that's enough, 
but it could be a start.

In general though, I think that holding such a session would be more 
efficient as part of the meeting of one of the larger API groups, 
typically WebApps. Things that get communicated to WebApps and decided 
there are likely to make their way to other groups relatively quickly. 
And I believe that might be more efficient than talking to the TAG. Even 
though things might change now that the TAG's make-up has evolved, I 
would expect API-making groups to listen to WebApps more readily than 
they'd listen to the TAG.

So to reformulate your three proposals:

1) At every TPAC there should be a presentation by TC39 to the W3C 
community, either in a dedicated breakout session or to WebApps.

2) W3C proactively invites participation from TC39 members in TPAC (we 
can handle the details offline).

3) WebApps has a second meeting (not at TPAC) every year, and it would 
be a good idea to catch up there as well.

(Please note that everything above involving WebApps is provisional on 
Art and Chaals not screaming at me afterwards. But they're usually nice :)

Note that next week there's a four-day meeting in San Jose involving 
HTML, WebApps, WebAppSec, and Web Crypto (at least). It's a bit short 
notice, but maybe we can experiment that there?

> I  realize that this mailing list probably isn't the best one for
> submitting these suggestions, but this is where we having the
> conversation and I think the push for coordination improvements needs
> to start at the grass roots level.

This is where we're having the conversation, so this is actually the 
best place to have these suggestions. I kicked off the thread for a 
reason :)

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Monday, 15 April 2013 09:02:24 UTC