On May 21, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:es-discuss-
[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Samuel
...
David Herman argued that overspecification is a problem in some
parts of the
spec and cited Array.prototype.sort.
In building your semantics, were there parts of the spec that stood
out as under-
specified that could benefit from being described via \JS or desugar?
Did you really mean "overspecification" in the first sentence?
Array.prototype.sort is actually one of the most loosely specified
built-in methods. For example, it doesn't say anything about
requiring a specific sort algorithm and leaves many possible cases
as "implementation-defined". Whether or not this is an appropriate
level of specification for this function is a separate discussion.
You two are in agreement. Dave's point was that sorting must be
underspecified. The spec does not want to dictate a sort algorithm or
even asymptotic complexity. Mike was citing that point as a potential
issue with any more thorough or systematic semantic specification.
Graydon noted it in connection with self-hosting.
/be
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