Once we have modules, should we have a place other than ECMA-262
to define standard host-environment libraries that ship with browsers?
Like the DOM?? ;-)
..criteria for which libraries might be within the prevue of TC39:
* it requires extensions to the base language syntax or semantics or core
libraries
* it is of general utility in a variety of hosting environment, not just
the browser
* it must be "baked in" to an implementation
* it raises significant interoperability issues that are solvable at the
specification level
* TC39 has the appropriate domain expertise or experts are willing to join
and participate in TC39
This reminds me of a different topic: foreign function interface.
Your first reaction might be: ES can't/shouldn't have any FFI!
In practice, FFI's exist in various forms already. Chapter 15
and DOM functions spring into existence seemingly out of
nowhere (there is no ES code that says "there should be a
'createElement'", no standard prelude that says "'slice' exists
and works on Array-like things"). Much of feature-testing
tries to secure the gaps created by implicit FFI.
Projects needing device access from ES found work-arounds
that support general, though not necessarily efficient, foreign
function access. Things like Phonegap are entirely based on
such work-arounds.
JS implementers experimenting with device access just
provide foreign functions implicitly, implementation-specific.
If ES had a foreign function interface (FFI) to specify how foreign
functionality could be imported into ES code, that might:
1 help to document current base functionality in code
(there could be standard libraries listing "pre-defined"
functions imported from the host environment)
2 provide a window for optimized, cross-browser
implementation of device access, without the work-arounds
currently employed in Phonegap/Cordova and related projects
Roughly, there would be ES source syntax for linking an ES
identifier to foreign code, and ES engine support for calling
that foreign code whenever the ES identifier is called in ES code.
Thoughts?
Claus
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