Why does JSEP exist yet?

To summarize: If I want to know about the pc.setLocalDescription()
method, should I check the JSEP spec [1] or the WebRTC W3C spec [2]?

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb-jsep-14#section-4.1.5
[2] https://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/#dom-rtcpeerconnection-setlocaldescription


Why is JSEP draft still needed at this stage?
And why should a IETF draft describe&document a W3C (JavaScript) API
rather than the corresponding W3C spec itself?

I don't think that such a duplicity of similar and related information
across documents belonging to different WG's is good for newcomers.


The W3C spec mentions JSEP in many places, for example:

> 4.3 RTCPeerConnection Interface
> The general operation of the RTCPeerConnection is described in [JSEP].

Why? why doesn't the W3C spec describe the general operation of the
API that it defines? why does it refer to another (IETF) document?


We may take a look to the WebSocket spec(s). They are split into a
IETF spec defining the WebSocket wire protocol [3] and a W3C spec [4]
defining an API for browsers to create and manage WebSocket instances.
Period. They don't not collide, and the W3C spec does not reference
the IETF one when it comes to describe a *JavaScript* method.

[3] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6455
[4] https://www.w3.org/TR/websockets/


So, if there is a good rationale for keeping both WebRTC related specs
(other than the fact that both were born several years ago) I think
they should target different audiences. Said that, it's not clear to
me who should read JSEP and who should read the W3C spec.


Regards.

-- 
Iñaki Baz Castillo
<ibc@aliax.net>

Received on Tuesday, 21 June 2016 08:31:45 UTC