Re: <Further LC Followup from IE> RE: Potential bugs identified in XHR LC Test Suite

Zhenbin Xu wrote:
> I think we are now off track.
> 
> Nonetheless we should realize that customer cannot
> write an interoperable page with my fictional home grown browser if it doesn't exist
> or doesn't have the needed feature when the page was written.  I doubt customers
> would write against particular browser if equal efforts can results in interoperable
> solutions run on top multiple browsers.  Now that the solutions are in place, they
> deserve our consideration.
> 
> I would argue it is important to think about customer's migration path when we design
> new feature or standardizing existing ones.  Otherwise we would be painting customers
> into corner and blaming them for their dilemma.

So I think the sticking point here is if there really are site 
interoperability issues or not. In the cases where all UAs behave the 
same way I certainly agree that that is a good indication that sites 
depend on that behavior, and so we should specify that behavior.

However when existing UAs with significant marketshare do different 
things, then that is a good indication that sites don't really depend on 
any particular behavior. Especially if the UA vendors haven't received 
any input about this being a problem, despite having a large user base.

In these cases I think we should choose the API that is most friendly 
towards JS developers. Of course it is debatable what is the best API 
from that point of view, but I would like to at least frame the 
discussion from that viewpoint in those cases.

/ Jonas

Received on Thursday, 19 June 2008 22:10:47 UTC