Hi, Since David Bruant mentioned JSFixed here let me just say that our intent is not to fight with TC39 (that'd be silly) but to cooperate with it. I try hard to keep people from pitchforking; instead I want them to share their pain points.
I personally[1] think that TC39 does a pretty good job but there are big problems with feedback loop. Half of the issues I see on JSFixed had been already harmonized[2] but people are not aware about it. The wiki is too confusing and searching mailing list archives is not the best way to spend your afternoon. Somehow I know more about what's coming to Python even though, nowadays, I spend less than 5% of my time actually using Python. Also, how does one share that their life sucks because of some particular quirk in JavaScript? TC39 members always tell us that they need this kind of feedback but there's no meaningful way to submit it. For example, in the thread about typeof I really wanted to +1 Crockford's comment and say: "Yes! I trip on typeof null all the time". Now, I'm not the one who gets easily intimidated by authoritative figures but I ended up not sending anything because I don't have a solution—only a problem shared with other devs. Wouldn't be nice if I could +1/star that thread and maybe add a paragraph describing how this issue makes my life harder without spamming inboxes of all es-discuss subscribers?[3] In addition to that, it'd be really nice to have down-to-earth explanation of harmonized changes with code samples that resemble real world use cases. FWIW, Rick and David are doing a great job writing code samples but not everyone follows them on Twitter/GitHub. And also its really hard to go back and find those gists/repos. As for the conferences, I think Brendan and other are already doing a good job speaking about what's coming to ES6 and what's in works. I don't see how group discussions will help there—especially since our community likes smaller conferences. But I might be wrong. Anton [1] As in "not speaking on behalf of JSFixed". [2] Kudos to Rick Waldron and David Herman for educating people about that. [3] Implementation details: GitHub is actually pretty terrible for that, as I learned from JSFixed, because of all +1 comments. Google Code's star feature is much better. On Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Mikeal Rogers wrote: > > On May 10, 2012, at May 10, 20121:41 AM, David Bruant wrote: > > > Le 10/05/2012 04:44, Mikeal Rogers a écrit : > > > The core problem is that people who work nearly full time on designing a > > > language are necessarily out of touch with people using it, and the > > > people using it are ill equipped to balance the priorities all all the > > > parties involved in designing it. > > > > I understand your point, but I'm afraid I disagree with your vision which I > > think is too simplistic. Dave Herman's task.js is a library that has been > > suggested on the JSFixed thread about asynchronisity [1]. Dave Herman is > > part of TC39 and what he did seems to resonate well in the developer > > community. > > It seems like you're opposing people who design the English language and > > people who use the English language. The world is not that dichotomic. > > People who used ECMAScript 3 felt the lack of .bind. People who design the > > language added it in ECMAScript 5. > > > > > I think a better strategy is for TC-39 to state definitively what is > > > *not* currently working on or is of a very low priority. This would allow > > > the community of people using JavaScript to tackle those problems more > > > directly rather than just waiting. At some point in the future TC-39 can > > > adopt or ratify behavior that has proved itself in the community. I know > > > this process is eluded to often but I don't think you understand how much > > > momentum gets sucked out of the community when they are under the > > > impression that new behavior will be handed down from TC-39 and that > > > their work may fall in conflict or out of date. > > > > > > The recent discussion about Object.isObject is a great example. If this > > > isn't happening please state so definitely so that we can rally around > > > existing work (underscore) or build something new. > > This point is interesting. Among the changes that TC39 have to make to the > > language, I see 2 categories. One is adding new language capabilities > > (WeakMap, proxies, lexical |this| functions, binary types, proto operator, > > etc.) the other is new built-in functions (for Array, Math, Object, etc.). > > Maybe the latter category could be "(partially) delegated" to the developer > > community and ratified by TC39. > > I foresee that with modules, a new field for this second category is > > opening and there will have some important discussion about what module > > should be in the standard and which shouldn't. Maybe the responsibility for > > this part could be also shared with the developer community since they are > > those who usually write these functions (out of need). > > > > > There is a difference to TC-39 but not much of a different to the community. > The web developer motto is "suck it up", if something is broken we write a > workaround or monkey patch it, If something is impossible to do one way we > find another way. > > People in the community don't ask for "WeakMap" until there is a proposal. > Instead they come up with other crazy ways to accomplish their end goals > without needing such a type to varying degrees success (we're still finding > leaks in FreeList in node.js http.js that might have been prevented had we > had WeakMap a few years ago). > > > > > > It might be beneficial to invite a few people from the developer > > > community to meetings and to rotate them out so that no one becomes truly > > > intrenched in the process. > > Or that the developer community decide to gather by itself and then share > > feedback on es-discuss. > > > > > That's hard. JavaScript is a diverse community which also means that it is > fragmented. I think the node.js community has a good core group of leadership > with somewhat consistent ideas about what the community wants from the > language. There are leaders in the web developer community that I believe > could speak well to their supporters (Jeremy Ashkenas, Thomas Fuchs) but > there isn't a place where the js community really comes together outside of > JSConf and the range of ideas is a diverse as the community. > > Maybe it would be a good idea to carve out some time at developer events that > bring these groups together to discuss what people want out of the language > and invite a leader from that group to a TC-39 meeting some time after. I can > carve out some time at NodeConf and I can talk to the BackboneConf guys about > doing the same. > > > > > David > > > > [1] https://github.com/JSFixed/JSFixed/issues/1 > > _______________________________________________ > es-discuss mailing list > [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss > > >
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