- From: Brendan Eich <brendan@mozilla.com>
- Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:53:43 -0700
- To: Yehuda Katz <wycats@gmail.com>
- Cc: Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, public-webapps@w3.org, HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>, es-discuss <es-discuss@mozilla.org>
On Sep 25, 2009, at 11:43 PM, Yehuda Katz wrote: > Do we disagree that it is a worthy goal to have a specification that > can be understood without having to take a while? I certainly > understand the utility in using something with precedent like IDL (for > implementors). Perhaps the IDL version could be part of an addendum, > and something What "something"? > with less historical and conceptual baggage be used > inline? Or is that too much work? Do the work, it's the only way to get to "something" and make it stick. I don't think we should continue cross-posting like this to three standards groups' lists. Yes, old and layered specs are often complex, even over-complicated. No, we can't fix that complexity in the case of WebIDL by rewriting the extant interface descriptions in ES. As Maciej noted, doing so would cost ~10x the source lines, and beyond verbosity would be incredibly unclear and error-prone. Those who seek to replace WebIDL must first grok what it means, how it is used. To do that, I suggest trimming cross-posts, and even before replying, reading up on the relevant WebIDL docs and list. Once you've braced yourself for this process, and gotten further into it, I am sure that a Q&A process will work better. You are absolutely correct that the specs are complex and have gaps. Every engineer who has worked on a web-compatible browser has had to learn this the hard way. I don't expect the Web to be "done" but I do think better specs will close gaps and reduce some of the complexity over time. That's the hope behind this overlong, cross-posted thread, anyway. I'll shut up now. /be
Received on Saturday, 26 September 2009 06:54:30 UTC