Re: Web IDL Garden Hose (was: ECMA TC 39 / W3C HTML and WebApps WG coordination)

On Sep 26, 2009, at 3:36 PM, Cameron McCormack wrote:

> Allen Wirfs-Brock:
>> Every place the WebIDL ECMAScript binding "overrides" an ECMAScript  
>> specification
>> internal method is a concern as these are special case extensions  
>> to the ECMAScript
>> semantics.  As language designers we need to understand if these  
>> special cases are
>> exemplars of general deficiencies in the language that should be  
>> addressed.
>>
>> In particular  now that ES5 is finished, WebIDL has a richer  
>> language to bind to then
>> it had with ES3.  We need a WebIDL binding that maximizes use of  
>> ES5 capabilities rather
>> than inventing non-standard (from an ES perspective) language  
>> extensions.
>
> Indeed, much of the custom [[Get]] etc. functionality can be turned  
> into
> ES5 meta-object stuff.  A pertinent question is then: should we change
> Web IDL to specify an ES5 binding (and not ES3) at this point, given
> that specs depending on it want to advance along the Rec track?

I would avoid depending on ES5 until there are multiple realworld  
implementations at least, especially because
the interaction between the es5 meta-object functionality and host  
objects is less than clear at present.

--Oliver

>
> -- 
> Cameron McCormack ≝ http://mcc.id.au/
>

Received on Saturday, 26 September 2009 22:51:08 UTC