On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 9:56 AM, John J Barton <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 9:29 AM, Rick Waldron <[email protected]> wrote: >> Consider the cowpath metaphor - web developers have made highways out of >> sticks, grass and mud - what we need is someone to pour the concrete. > > I'm confused. Is the goal shorter load times (Yehuda) or better > developer ergonomics (Waldron)? > > Of course *some* choices may do both. Some may not.
Libraries generally do three things: (1) patch over browser inconsistencies, (2) fix bad ergonomics in APIs, and (3) add new features*. #1 is just background noise; we can't do anything except write good specs, patch our browsers, and migrate users. #3 is the normal mode of operations here. I'm sure there are plenty of features currently done purely in libraries that would benefit from being proposed here, like Promises, but I don't think we need to push too hard on this case. It'll open itself up on its own, more or less. Still, something to pay attention to. #2 is the kicker, and I believe what Yehuda is mostly talking about. There's a *lot* of code in libraries which offers no new features, only a vastly more convenient syntax for existing features. This is a large part of the reason why jQuery got so popular. Fixing this both makes the web easier to program for and reduces library weight. * Yes, #3 is basically a subset of #2 since libraries aren't rewriting the JS engine, but there's a line you can draw between "here's an existing feature, but with better syntax" and "here's a fundamentally new idea, which you could do before but only with extreme contortions". ~TJ
