RE: Next Web Focus

It might help to separate the technology needed by the polyfill from the markup or capability that it is supporting.   Make the loading of the polyfill a matter for the user and give the user choice over which polyfill they load.

The web developer could be restricted from having access to the lower level capabilities needed to implement the polyfill, and only have access to the capabilities that the polyfill adds.   The web developer might also be a developer of the polyfill but would be working in an environment in which the user could modify the polyfill or use an alternative - in the same way that a user has choice over their user agent.

For example the polyfill might require Javascript but add markup capabilities that work even when Javascript is disabled for the document.

As the web standards evolve, the polyfilled capabilities could be moved to native browser implementations if there is sufficient demand, and this browser need not support the loading of the polyfill.

My angle on this is security and privacy for the user.  A limited declarative language, such as HTML markup, is far better for controlling the user security and privacy.   I would prefer not to see every developer bundling their own version of the web standards built on general low level primitives - this seems contrary to the contemporary evolution of the web.  Perhaps separating the operation of the polyfill from the document, and giving the user choice over the loading of the polyfill, would mitigate such concerns.

cheers
Fred

Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:53:11 -0500
From: bkardell@gmail.com
To: jrussell.smyth@gmail.com
CC: simonstl@simonstl.com; public-nextweb@w3.org
Subject: Re: Next Web Focus



On Jan 25, 2014 11:46 AM, "J. Russell Smyth" <jrussell.smyth@gmail.com> wrote:

>

>

> On Jan 24, 2014, at 8:15 PM, Brian Kardell <bkardell@gmail.com> wrote:

>

>> The aims of this group are, yes focused on advocating and discussing polyfills and prollyfills - and advocacy that enables this, for significant reasons and in ways described on extensiblewebmanifesto.org.  Very key among these is that it provides an evolutionary model forward rather than allowing a browser to stymie efforts or prompting big bets on radical change which, if they fail (and many do), stall forward momentum on the current platform.  Actually, i would say the majority of work has been applying this advocacy in existing WGs to prioritize efforts in this direction as a guiding philosophy.


>>

>>

> It seems to me the focus of this group isn’t really the polyfills and prolyfills - rather those are the tools used experiment, find places where core expansion is valuable/necessary, and encourage and drive those critical lower level primitives into the platform itself.


It currently happens to be the case that this is where a lot of value is added because of where we are, yes.

That stated, it is part of our charter and has been since early discussions part of our desire to be a place to discuss polyfills and prollyfills and aid/establish a vibrant community around this.  I would love more.  Bring interesting ones to our attention.