Re: Coordination

On 4/13/13 12:49 AM, Rick Waldron wrote:
> This statement negates itself—people defining new APIs have an
> obligation to understand the language in which the APIs they are writing
> will be used.

While true, there are different levels of understanding at play here. 
Do they need to understand all the things that have been proposed and 
rejected and why they were rejected?  Do they need to understand various 
minutiae of language features that don't even exist yet and might not?

You can make the argument that they should; that there is no way to 
really understand a language unless you know all the things it is not 
and why it's not those things.  But I'm not sure that's a useful thing 
to require, in the end.

>     2) We need better examples of what JS-friendly APIs are (or should be)
>
> I can't believe I'm reading this, as if you believe there are no
> examples of real world code that is very JS-friendly?

There are examples of real-world code that some TC-39 members claim to 
be "JS-friendly" while other TC-39 members claim otherwise...

It's obviously worth looking at the APIs exposed by JS libraries, but 
even then there is significant disagreement between libraries and their 
user bases about what makes for a "JS-friendly" API.

> As far as "outreach", in my own experience whenever I've offered
> feedback directly to DOM API authors, I'm frequently met with responses
> such as "that's not consistent with the platform [/end]".

I'm sorry to hear that.

> Meanwhile, library authors have no trouble designing sane DOM APIs that
> web developers enjoy using. The difference: library authors listen to
> their users, DOM API authors do not.

Another important difference worth keeping in mind: users who do not 
like the API a library exposes use a different library with an API more 
to their liking.  That's not an option we have with the DOM except to 
the extent that people don't use it and use a library instead.

> So far today, every response from a non-TC39 member has been to the tune
> of "I want something, but I don't want to work for it, so find another
> way to give it to me, but I don't have any suggestions".

I think that's a gross mischaracterization of what Chaals and I said, at 
the very least.  If that's honestly what you read in what we said, then 
I urge you to read at least 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-script-coord/2013AprJun/0068.html 
again.

-Boris

Received on Saturday, 13 April 2013 05:35:08 UTC