A few questions: 1. What is the definition of a "modern" browser that we could build data against? 2. Is this a line-in-the-sand kind of effort? (meaning libraries become smaller but limited in browser compatibilities).
On May 15, 2012, at 9:46 PM, Yehuda Katz wrote: > > Yehuda Katz > (ph) 718.877.1325 > > > On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 12:43 AM, Brian LeRoux <b...@brian.io> wrote: > +1 > > We've been saying this for a long time on the PhoneGap team. Indeed, > it is happening, as evidenced by libs like xuijs and zepto, but having > a stated goal and formal process to monitor and respond to community > hacks, shims, libs, and practices would be great. > > Awesome. For what it's worth, the shortcuts taken by Zepto et al make it hard > for jQuery and other libraries to actually become smaller. They give off the > impression that the browsers are getting better, but performance footguns and > small problems in new APIs often put the kibosh on actually using the new > features. In most cases, these small issues make it nearly impossible to > simply replace an area of jQuery code with a new feature and remove the old > code. Sometimes the old code is still needed for some code paths, even if it > is no longer needed for all code paths. > > > > On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 6:32 AM, Yehuda Katz <wyc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > In the past year or so, I've participated in a number of threads that were > > implicitly about adding features to browsers that would shrink the size of > > existing libraries. > > > > Inevitably, those discussions end up litigating whether making it easier for > > jQuery (or some other library) to do the task is a good idea in the first > > place. > > > > While those discussions are extremely useful, I feel it would be useful for > > a group to focus on proposals that would shrink the size of existing > > libraries with the implicit assumption that it was a good idea. > > > > From some basic experimentation I've personally done with the jQuery > > codebase, I feel that such a group could rather quickly identify enough > > areas to make a much smaller version of jQuery that ran on modern browsers > > plausible. I also think that having data to support or refute that assertion > > would be useful, as it's often made casually in meta-discussions. > > > > If there is a strong reason that people feel that a focused effort to > > identify ways to shrink existing popular libraries in new browsers would be > > a bad idea, I'd be very interested to hear it. > > > > Thanks so much for your consideration, > > > > Yehuda Katz > > jQuery Foundation > > (ph) 718.877.1325 >
