Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Julian Aubourg]

Hey all,

Like Jungkee, I haven't been active editing the XHR spec. I too feel like
XHR L1 is very far from trivial. That is because the snapshot Domenic is
talking about is not what XHR L1 is supposed to be. XHR L1 is supposed to
be a state of what is actually implemented in released browsers at a
specific date, not the state of the living standard at said date. Hence the
huge focus on testing as a means to filter out what's not supported. This
daunting task is, AFAIK, still done manually (including running tests,
collecting results, analyzing them and editing the spec accordingly).

Honestly, I don't think we have the proper infrastructure nor the proper
spec format for handling this properly and in a timely fashion. With nearly
all vendors now gone the auto-update way, anything short of full automation
is more and more looking like a fool's errand. But for a fully automated
snapshot, specs would need to incorporate unit tests (something not too far
fetched when you consider how implementation details centered they are
now). That's a lot of parts to move, to agree on and to implement.

The community handles the problem with sites like http://caniuse.com/. It
doesn't tie support to actual spec content but it seems good (detailed)
enough to me (as in, that's how I personally check what I can and cannot
use). Do authors actually need more detail that this? Would vendors have a
use for something more detailed?

In summary, I like the idea of XHR L1 but I think it's an impractical
amount of work if not automated and I'm uncertain it would be of more use
than what the community already created.

Sorry for the wall of text ;)

-- Julian

On 7 August 2015 at 15:52, Jungkee Song  wrote:

> Hi Art, Hallvord, Julian, and all,
>
> Apologies having not been active on it. My feeling is capturing a snapshot
> for REC would still be a non-trivial task. Unfortunately, I don't seem to
> be able to spare much time on this work as of now. Sorry for not being able
> to help. It's my own stance, not the other editors. Domenic's suggestion
> sound reasonable to me if we are not coming up with a better plan.
>
> Best regards,
> Jungkee
>
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Arthur Barstow [mailto:art.bars...@gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, August 07, 2015 8:37 PM
> > To: Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen; Jungkee Song; Julian Aubourg
> > Cc: WebApps WG
> > Subject: Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned
> >
> > On 8/6/15 8:07 AM, Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen wrote:
> > > On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Anne van Kesteren  > > <mailto:ann...@annevk.nl>> wrote:
> > >
> > > According to Art the plan of record is to still pursue
> > > https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/xhr-1/Overview.html
> > >
> > >
> > > And you correctly note
> > >
> > > but
> > > that was last updated more than a year ago. Last "formally"
> published
> > > a year and a half ago.
> > >
> > >
> > > And that is mostly my fault. I intended to keep the W3C fork up to
> > > date (at least up to a point), but at some point I attempted to simply
> > > apply Git patches from Anne's edits to the WHATWG version, and it
> > > turned out Git had problems applying them automatically for whatever
> > > reason - apparently the versions were already so distinct that it
> > > wasn't possible. Since then I haven't found time for doing the manual
> > > cut-and-paste work required, and I therefore think it's probably
> > > better to follow Anne's advice and drop the W3C version entirely in
> > > favour of the WHATWG version. I still like the idea of having a
> > > "stable" spec documenting the interoperable behaviour of XHR by a
> > > given point in time - but I haven't been able to prioritise it and
> > > neither, apparently, have the other two editors.
> >
> > Jungkee, Julian - we would like your input, in particular whether or not
> > you can still commit to helping with the tasks required to move XHR Level
> > 1 along the Recommendation track.
> >
> > Others - if you can commit to helping with the main tasks (editing,
> > testing, implementation, etc.) for XHR L1, please let us know.
> >
> > -Thanks, AB
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

RE: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Jungkee Song]

Hi Art, Hallvord, Julian, and all,

Apologies having not been active on it. My feeling is capturing a snapshot for 
REC would still be a non-trivial task. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able 
to spare much time on this work as of now. Sorry for not being able to help. 
It's my own stance, not the other editors. Domenic's suggestion sound 
reasonable to me if we are not coming up with a better plan.

Best regards,
Jungkee

> -Original Message-
> From: Arthur Barstow [mailto:art.bars...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2015 8:37 PM
> To: Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen; Jungkee Song; Julian Aubourg
> Cc: WebApps WG
> Subject: Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned
> 
> On 8/6/15 8:07 AM, Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Anne van Kesteren  > <mailto:ann...@annevk.nl>> wrote:
> >
> > According to Art the plan of record is to still pursue
> > https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/xhr-1/Overview.html
> >
> >
> > And you correctly note
> >
> > but
> > that was last updated more than a year ago. Last "formally" published
> > a year and a half ago.
> >
> >
> > And that is mostly my fault. I intended to keep the W3C fork up to
> > date (at least up to a point), but at some point I attempted to simply
> > apply Git patches from Anne's edits to the WHATWG version, and it
> > turned out Git had problems applying them automatically for whatever
> > reason - apparently the versions were already so distinct that it
> > wasn't possible. Since then I haven't found time for doing the manual
> > cut-and-paste work required, and I therefore think it's probably
> > better to follow Anne's advice and drop the W3C version entirely in
> > favour of the WHATWG version. I still like the idea of having a
> > "stable" spec documenting the interoperable behaviour of XHR by a
> > given point in time - but I haven't been able to prioritise it and
> > neither, apparently, have the other two editors.
> 
> Jungkee, Julian - we would like your input, in particular whether or not
> you can still commit to helping with the tasks required to move XHR Level
> 1 along the Recommendation track.
> 
> Others - if you can commit to helping with the main tasks (editing,
> testing, implementation, etc.) for XHR L1, please let us know.
> 
> -Thanks, AB
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Arthur Barstow]

On 8/6/15 8:07 AM, Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen wrote:
On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Anne van Kesteren > wrote:


According to Art the plan of record is to still pursue
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/xhr-1/Overview.html 



And you correctly note

but
that was last updated more than a year ago. Last "formally" published
a year and a half ago.


And that is mostly my fault. I intended to keep the W3C fork up to 
date (at least up to a point), but at some point I attempted to simply 
apply Git patches from Anne's edits to the WHATWG version, and it 
turned out Git had problems applying them automatically for whatever 
reason - apparently the versions were already so distinct that it 
wasn't possible. Since then I haven't found time for doing the manual 
cut-and-paste work required, and I therefore think it's probably 
better to follow Anne's advice and drop the W3C version entirely in 
favour of the WHATWG version. I still like the idea of having a 
"stable" spec documenting the interoperable behaviour of XHR by a 
given point in time - but I haven't been able to prioritise it and 
neither, apparently, have the other two editors.


Jungkee, Julian - we would like your input, in particular whether or not 
you can still commit to helping with the tasks required to move XHR 
Level 1 along the Recommendation track.


Others - if you can commit to helping with the main tasks (editing, 
testing, implementation, etc.) for XHR L1, please let us know.


-Thanks, AB

RE: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Domenic Denicola]

From: Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen [mailto:hst...@mozilla.com] 

> I still like the idea of having a "stable" spec documenting the interoperable 
> behaviour of XHR by a given point in time - but I haven't been able to 
> prioritise it and neither, apparently, have the other two editors.

Thankfully, such snapshots already exist :). See for example [1] whose date 
(2014-05-21) matches the date of [2] (2014-05-26). A version viewable 
in-browser is at [3], although eventually we might want to put in a modicum of 
work to host it on xhr.spec.whatwg.org and display an appropriate warning 
banner, similar to what Streams does with [4].

[1]: 
https://github.com/whatwg/xhr/blob/848b22e99f36cb4a4481b77c382a1fd484ddf737/Overview.html
[2]: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/Overview.html
[3]: 
https://rawgit.com/whatwg/xhr/848b22e99f36cb4a4481b77c382a1fd484ddf737/Overview.html
[4]: 
https://streams.spec.whatwg.org/commit-snapshots/db28a0dcbb81a9bb1c9642f25364f33dcae0bb49/

Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Robin Berjon]

Hi Hallvord,

I don't have a specific opinion on where what should be done, speaking 
personally I certainly don't have an issue with XHR being at the WHATWG, 
but just some notes below in case it helps.


On 06/08/2015 14:07 , Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen wrote:

And that is mostly my fault. I intended to keep the W3C fork up to date
(at least up to a point), but at some point I attempted to simply apply
Git patches from Anne's edits to the WHATWG version, and it turned out
Git had problems applying them automatically for whatever reason -
apparently the versions were already so distinct that it wasn't
possible.


Yes, once differences grow too much, even if you make use of 
cherry-picking, at some point there isn't much that git (or diff/patch) 
can do to merge two documents that are too far apart.



Since then I haven't found time for doing the manual
cut-and-paste work required, and I therefore think it's probably better
to follow Anne's advice and drop the W3C version entirely in favour of
the WHATWG version. I still like the idea of having a "stable" spec
documenting the interoperable behaviour of XHR by a given point in time
- but I haven't been able to prioritise it and neither, apparently, have
the other two editors.


Depending on how involved the differences between L1 and the LS are, one 
option is to do this with code. If L1 is a subset and the subsetting 
doesn't require editing things mid-sentence (e.g. just dropping sections 
and a few odds and ends) then you can simply keep pulling the LS and 
apply code that filters out what you don't want.


--
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Arthur Barstow]

On 8/6/15 3:15 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

According to Art
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/Overview.html is no longer
maintained.


WebApps agreed to stop work on the above (aka XHR L2) and published a WG 
Note in November 2014 [1].



It should redirect to https://xhr.spec.whatwg.org/
therefore.


Yes, that seems like a reasonable thing to do and if there are no 
non-resolvable objections to doing so, I will request that redirection 
is done.



According to Art the plan of record is to still pursue
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/xhr-1/Overview.html


Yes, that is still the group's plan of record (per the charter [2]).


but that was last updated more than a year ago. Last "formally" published
a year and a half ago. That causes significant confusion. More
importantly, implementations are implementing the new features in
https://xhr.spec.whatwg.org/ so nobody has much use for a "Level 1".
Especially one that is not layered on top of Fetch and therefore
doesn't even work with service workers.


As is the case with all of the group's specs, if we no longer have 
sufficient interest and commitments (editing, implementation, testing, 
etc.) to continue to move a spec toward Recommendation status, then such 
a spec should be published as WG Note, work stopped and the charter 
updated to reflect that new status.


In the case of XHR L1, indeed the ED has not changed in over a year, 
although there is still some active work on the XHR test suite [3]. As 
far as I know, the editors are still committed to move that spec to 
Recommendation and unless I hear otherwise, I presume the consensus of 
the group is to continue to include XHR L1 in the group's charter. 
However, if the Editors and/or other participants recommend otherwise, I 
would appreciate it, if they would please voice their opinion.


(BTW, the test results data [4] was  last updated in October 2014. 
Perhaps it would be useful to get some new data. Any volunteer(s)?)


-Thanks, ArtB

[1] 
[2] 
[3] 
[4] 

Re: W3C's version of XMLHttpRequest should be abandoned

[Hallvord Reiar Michaelsen Steen]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Anne van Kesteren  wrote:

> According to Art
> https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/Overview.html is no longer
> maintained. It should redirect to https://xhr.spec.whatwg.org/
> therefore.
>

Well, I don't think he said exactly "it's not maintained" - he said:


> According to Art the plan of record is to still pursue
> https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/xhr/raw-file/default/xhr-1/Overview.html


And you correctly note


> but
> that was last updated more than a year ago. Last "formally" published
> a year and a half ago.


And that is mostly my fault. I intended to keep the W3C fork up to date (at
least up to a point), but at some point I attempted to simply apply Git
patches from Anne's edits to the WHATWG version, and it turned out Git had
problems applying them automatically for whatever reason - apparently the
versions were already so distinct that it wasn't possible. Since then I
haven't found time for doing the manual cut-and-paste work required, and I
therefore think it's probably better to follow Anne's advice and drop the
W3C version entirely in favour of the WHATWG version. I still like the idea
of having a "stable" spec documenting the interoperable behaviour of XHR by
a given point in time - but I haven't been able to prioritise it and
neither, apparently, have the other two editors.
-Hallvord