Re: =[xhr]

To: Ms. Anne Kesteren, Editor, and associates

[more specific request than above]

I respectfully request that the warning on page http://xhr.spec.whatwg.org/

Warning: Developers must not pass false for the async argument when
the JavaScript
global environment
<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/infrastructure.html#javascript-global-environment>
is a document environment
<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/webappapis.html#document-environment>
as it has detrimental effects to the end user's experience. User agents are
strongly encouraged to warn about such usage in developer tools and *may
experiment with throwing <http://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#concept-throw> an
"InvalidAccessError <http://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#invalidaccesserror>"
exception when it occurs so the feature can eventually be removed from the
platform.  *

be truncated to:

Warning: Developers must not pass false for the async argument when
the JavaScript
global environment
<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/infrastructure.html#javascript-global-environment>
is a document environment
<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/webappapis.html#document-environment>
as it has detrimental effects to the end user's experience. User agents are
strongly encouraged to warn about such usage in developer tools when it
occurs so the feature can eventually be removed from the platform.

Could that be seen as a "friendly amendment"?

My point is simply that "experiment with throwing an exception" and
"removal" are synonymous in practice. It's one thing to promote and notify
developers of an important "eventual" change like this. (I support that
fully and appreciate it.) It is quite another thing to suggest that browser
developers effectively implement it immediately, thus instantly making
nonfunctional an entire set of important web sites utilized across a wide
variety of science disciplines.

Cordially,

Bob Hanson

-- 
Robert M. Hanson
Larson-Anderson Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Department of Chemistry
St. Olaf College
Northfield, MN
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr


If nature does not answer first what we want,
it is better to take what answer we get.

-- Josiah Willard Gibbs, Lecture XXX, Monday, February 5, 1900

-- 
Robert M. Hanson
Larson-Anderson Professor of Chemistry
Chair, Department of Chemistry
St. Olaf College
Northfield, MN
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr


If nature does not answer first what we want,
it is better to take what answer we get.

-- Josiah Willard Gibbs, Lecture XXX, Monday, February 5, 1900