Re: QSA, the problem with ":scope", and naming

I think the query selector functionality is important enough that one
could easily justify adding additional APIs to make this work
better/faster, even if they overlap with existing APIs.  But, it would
be unfortunate if more APIs were added to the DOM and libraries still
weren't able to use them because the semantics didn't end up being
quite right.
It seems like the right approach would be to take jquery and rewrite
it to use this new API and then see empirically whether it gives the
same selection behavior as before and see how much of a performance or
simplicity gain there is after doing this.
(I think it's a good thing to allow selectors to start with
combinators.  That seems very useful.)

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 9:47 AM, Alex Russell <slightlyoff@google.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 5:42 PM, Alex Russell <slightlyoff@google.com> wrote:
>> Lachlan and I have been having an...um...*spirited* twitter discussion
>> regarding querySelectorAll, the (deceased?) queryScopedSelectorAll,
>> and ":scope". He asked me to continue here, so I'll try to keep it
>> short:
>>
>> The rooted forms of "querySelector" and "querySelectorAll" are mis-designed.
>>
>> Discussions about a Scoped variant or ":scope" pseudo tacitly
>> acknowledge this, and the JS libraries are proof in their own right:
>> no major JS library exposes the QSA semantic, instead choosing to
>> implement a rooted search.
>>
>> Related and equally important, that querySelector and querySelectorAll
>> are often referred to by the abbreviation "QSA" suggests that its name
>> is bloated and improved versions should have shorter names. APIs gain
>> use both through naming and through use.
>
> Sorry, this should say "meaning". APIs gain *meaning* through both use
> and naming.
>
>> On today's internet -- the
>> one where 50% of all websites include jQuery -- you could even go with
>> element.$("selector") and everyone would know what you mean: it's
>> clearly a search rooted at the element on the left-hand side of the
>> dot.
>>
>> Ceteris peribus, shorter is better. When there's a tie that needs to
>> be broken, the more frequently used the API, the shorter the name it
>> deserves -- i.e., the larger the component of its meaning it will gain
>> through use and repetition and not naming and documentation.
>>
>> I know some on this list might disagree, but all of the above is
>> incredibly non-controversial today. Even if there may have been
>> debates about scoping or naming when QSA was originally designed,
>> history has settled them. And QSA lost on both counts.
>>
>> I therefore believe that this group's current design for scoped
>> selection could be improved significantly. If I understand the latest
>> draft (http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api2/#the-scope-pseudo-class)
>> correctly, a scoped search for multiple elements would be written as:
>>
>>   element.querySelectorAll(":scope > div > .thinger");
>>
>> Both then name and the need to specify ":scope" are punitive to
>> readers and writers of this code. The selector is *obviously*
>> happening in relationship to "element" somehow. The only sane
>> relationship (from a modern JS hacker's perspective) is that it's
>> where our selector starts from. I'd like to instead propose that we
>> shorten all of this up and kill both stones by introducing a new API
>> pair, "find" and "findAll", that are rooted as JS devs expect. The
>> above becomes:
>>
>>   element.findAll("> div > .thinger");
>>
>> Out come the knives! You can't start a selector with a combinator!
>>
>> Ah, but we don't need to care what CSS thinks of our DOM-only API. We
>> can live and let live by building on ":scope" and specifying find* as
>> syntactic sugar, defined as:
>>
>>  HTMLDocument.prototype.find =
>>  HTMLElement.prototype.find = function(rootedSelector) {
>>     return this.querySelector(":scope " + rootedSelector);
>>   }
>>
>>   HTMLDocument.prototype.findAll =
>>   HTMLElement.prototype.findAll = function(rootedSelector) {
>>     return this.querySelectorAll(":scope " + rootedSelector);
>>   }
>>
>> Of course, ":scope" in this case is just a special case of the ID
>> rooting hack, but if we're going to have it, we can kill both birds
>> with it.
>>
>> Obvious follow up questions:
>>
>> Q.) Why do we need this at all? Don't the toolkits already just do
>> this internally?
>> A.) Are you saying everyone, everywhere, all the time should need to
>> use a toolkit to get sane behavior from the DOM? If so, what are we
>> doing here, exactly?
>>
>> Q.) Shorter names? Those are for weaklings!
>> A.) And humans. Who still constitute most of our developers. Won't
>> someone please think of the humans?
>>
>> Q.) You're just duplicating things!
>> A.) If you ignore all of the things that are different, then that's
>> true. If not, well, then no. This is a change. And a good one for the
>> reasons listed above.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 18 October 2011 22:47:13 UTC