Wow. What a thread. I look away for a day, and this magic beanstalk is all the way to the clouds.
I am happy to see that all newcomers are now up to speed. I am heartened to recognize the same WTFs and grumbling that we went through along the path. I feel your pain -- I've been there myself. As Hixie once told me (paraphrasing, can't remember exact words), "All the good choices have been made. We're only left with terrible ones". I could be wrong (please correct me), but we didn't birth any new ideas so far, now that everyone has caught up with the constraints. The good news is that the imperative syntax is solid. It's nicely compatible with ES6, ES3/5, and can be even used to make built-in HTML elements (modulo security/isolation problem, which we shouldn't tackle here). I am going to offer a cop-out option: maybe we simply don't offer imperative syntax as part of the spec? Should we let libraries/frameworks build their own custom elements (with opinion and flair) to implement declarative syntax systems? :DG<
