Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

Hey all,

Like Jungkee, I haven't been active editing the XHR spec. I too feel like
XHR L1 is very far from trivial. That is because the snapshot Domenic is
talking about is not what XHR L1 is supposed to be. XHR L1 is supposed to
be a state of what is actually implemented in released browsers at a
specific date, not the state of the living standard at said date. Hence the
huge focus on testing as a means to filter out what's not supported. This
daunting task is, AFAIK, still done manually (including running tests,
collecting results, analyzing them and editing the spec accordingly).

Honestly, I don't think we have the proper infrastructure nor the proper
spec format for handling this properly and in a timely fashion. With nearly
all vendors now gone the auto-update way, anything short of full automation
is more and more looking like a fool's errand. But for a fully automated
snapshot, specs would need to incorporate unit tests (something not too far
fetched when you consider how implementation details centered they are
now). That's a lot of parts to move, to agree on and to implement.

The community handles the problem with sites like http://caniuse.com/. It
doesn't tie support to actual spec content but it seems good (detailed)
enough to me (as in, that's how I personally check what I can and cannot
use). Do authors actually need more detail that this? Would vendors have a
use for something more detailed?

In summary, I like the idea of XHR L1 but I think it's an impractical
amount of work if not automated and I'm uncertain it would be of more use
than what the community already created.

Sorry for the wall of text ;)

-- Julian

On 7 August 2015 at 15:52, Jungkee Song <jungkee.song@samsung.com> wrote:

> Hi Art, Hallvord, Julian, and all,
>
> Apologies having not been active on it. My feeling is capturing a snapshot
> for REC would still be a non-trivial task. Unfortunately, I don't seem to
> be able to spare much time on this work as of now. Sorry for not being able
> to help. It's my own stance, not the other editors. Domenic's suggestion
> sound reasonable to me if we are not coming up with a better plan.
>
> Best regards,
> Jungkee
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Arthur Barstow [mailto:art.barstow@gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, August 07, 2015 8:37 PM
> > To: Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen; Jungkee Song; Julian Aubourg
> > Cc: WebApps WG
> > Subject: Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned
> >
> > On 8/6/15 8:07 AM, Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen wrote:
> > > On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@annevk.nl
> > > <mailto:annevk@annevk.nl>> wrote:
> > >
> > >     According to Art the plan of record is to still pursue
> > >     https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/xhr-1/Overview.html
> > >
> > >
> > > And you correctly note
> > >
> > >     but
> > >     that was last updated more than a year ago. Last "formally"
> published
> > >     a year and a half ago.
> > >
> > >
> > > And that is mostly my fault. I intended to keep the W3C fork up to
> > > date (at least up to a point), but at some point I attempted to simply
> > > apply Git patches from Anne's edits to the WHATWG version, and it
> > > turned out Git had problems applying them automatically for whatever
> > > reason - apparently the versions were already so distinct that it
> > > wasn't possible. Since then I haven't found time for doing the manual
> > > cut-and-paste work required, and I therefore think it's probably
> > > better to follow Anne's advice and drop the W3C version entirely in
> > > favour of the WHATWG version. I still like the idea of having a
> > > "stable" spec documenting the interoperable behaviour of XHR by a
> > > given point in time - but I haven't been able to prioritise it and
> > > neither, apparently, have the other two editors.
> >
> > Jungkee, Julian - we would like your input, in particular whether or not
> > you can still commit to helping with the tasks required to move XHR Level
> > 1 along the Recommendation track.
> >
> > Others - if you can commit to helping with the main tasks (editing,
> > testing, implementation, etc.) for XHR L1, please let us know.
> >
> > -Thanks, AB
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>