Structured clone in WebStorage

For over a year now, the WebStorage spec has stipulated that
Local/SessionStorage store and retrieve objects per the structured clone
algorithm rather than strings.  And yet there isn't a single implementation
who's implemented this.  I've talked to people in the know from several of
the other major browsers and, although no one is super against implementing
it (including us), no one has it on any of their (even internal) roadmaps.
 It's just not a high enough priority for anyone at the moment.

Yet any person who reads the spec gets a very different impression [1].  I
personally have talked to dozens of very confused individuals who actually
read the spec and are confused as to why they can't store anything other
than strings in any implementation.  Our developer relations team has talked
to many more.  And everyone keeps thinking support for structured clones is
just around the horizon.

I feel pretty strongly that we should _at least_ put in some non-normative
note that no browser vendor is currently planning on implementing this
feature.  Or, better yet, just remove it from the spec until support starts
emerging.

J

[1] The WebStorage specs is one of the most approachable and thus people
actually do read it.  In fact, even for many expert web developers, it's the
first spec they've ever read.

Received on Wednesday, 24 November 2010 11:01:42 UTC