You have some valid points Axel. Maybe the biggest problem is one of communication - JSFixed has received a lot of attention and many followers in just a few days - which suggests developers want more access to the process by which the language is developed. To that end I hope we are providing a service. Incidentally the advisory forum with voting which you suggest is exactly what JSFixed is now providing.
Apologies if the JSFixed project has spawned or even encouraged anti-TC39 sentiment. Anton, Kit and I committed to keeping things civil and respectful on our side. In any case its my hope, as developer advocates we can offer useful input to the TC39 process. Angus On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Axel Rauschmayer <[email protected]> wrote: > I’m seeing quite a bit of anti-TC39 sentiment out there and I don’t think > it’s fair. Some examples (paraphrasing): > > - “TC39 doesn’t care about web developers and/or doesn’t understand web > development.” > - “TC39 ignores what the people want and designs ‘by committee’.” > - “TC39 is moving too slowly, does too little.” > > The following are counter-points to those opinions: > > - If you want to do good design, it is impossible to please everybody. > Design by popular vote is worse than design by committee. That’s why we > have representative democracies. > > - Evolving the language while remaining backward compatible is a hard > problem. I like what TC39 has done so far. The main goal must be to have as > clean a language as possible in the future. Doing so while being backward > compatible means that the transition can be a little messy (several similar > constructs existing in parallel etc.), but that is unavoidable. One doesn’t > need to understand all the gory details as long is things are simple *in > practice*. > > - TC39 has a lot of responsibility and must keep many parties happy. The > payoff, however, is huge: I’m not aware of any other programming language > that is as open and has as many different, yet highly compatible, > implementations. Hence, moving at a deliberate pace is a good thing. > Compare with how much progress Java has made over the years (in an > environment that is much simpler than JavaScript’s). In that light > ES.next’s progress looks quite good. > > - I find es-discuss quite open and appreciate it as a resource. I see TC39 > members expend a lot of energy and patience in answering as many questions > as possible. Every now and then a question won’t be answered. But that is > understandable, as es-discuss is not a support hotline that has to cover > 100% of the questions. > > What could be improved: > > - Make it easier to search the mailing list archives. Might be a minor > thing, but it would really help. I wonder how Brendan always finds those > old threads that are relevant to a particular topic. > > - Possibly add an FAQ. This could be as simple as collecting all emails > that have long-term explanatory value. > > - I like the idea of having a forum what some people can suggest ideas and > everyone can vote on them. One would need both up-votes and down-votes, as > there is bound to be a lot of troll material. Such a forum can only ever > have an advisory role. But it gives developers the opportunity to vent > their feelings and it gives TC39 popular feedback (including ideas that > might not have come up before). By bundling requests, traffic is reduced. > > - Some complaints are about evolving the standard library (including > collection types). I’ve seen Brendan hint at a strategy for doing so, but > I’d love to read more about it. > > Axel > > -- > Dr. Axel Rauschmayer > [email protected] > > home: rauschma.de > twitter: twitter.com/rauschma > blog: 2ality.com > > _______________________________________________ > es-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss >
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