On Oct 27, 2011, at 9:44 AM, Dave Fugate wrote: > +1: > * existing test case IDs for all 10K+ tests on test262 would need to updated. > This alone makes me very hesitant to suggest any modifications to the > *existing* pseudo-code algorithms
ES.next is a major revision of the ES specification. Much more so than ES5 was. Unfortunately many of the existing algorithms have to be modified to accommodate new semantics introduced in ES.next. In other cases, feature semantics may not have changed but the lower level semantics that the feature algorithms depend upon have had to change to accommodate new functionality unrelated to this specific feature and those changes force changes to the feature algorithms. Finally, the accumulated effect of all these changes leads to situations where both local and global refactoring of the specification are necessary in order to make in a readable/usable document. You can already see some of this in the current draft. It will be even more apparent in the next draft that I should be able to post next week. > * an implementer's dilemma here is that in many cases a developer > implementing Harmony feature 'Xyz' is not going to be well-versed in *all* > areas of ES5.1 In order to properly interpreter the ES specification for a feature an implementer is going to need to be pretty comprehensively versed in the entire specification > > That said, there's definitely value in spec'ing Harmony's *new* methods > (e.g., 'String.prototype.startsWith') in ES5.1 no the normative specification must be the pseudo code in the actual specification. If the existence of a translation of it into executable code in some language by TC39 members is going to creating the impression that such code is a normative substitute for the actual specification then we shouldn't do it.d > from a test perspective. I.e., I can write the tests, mock the ES6 additions > to an existing ES5.1 implementation, and most importantly validate > correctness of the tests themselves long before a native implementation of > the ES6 feature has become available. It's a great enabler for more TDD. an executable translation of the specification is useful both for developing tests and using them to debug the specification. I don't see where TDD enters into it. It is certainly not how we are developing the specification. Allen _______________________________________________ es-discuss mailing list es-discuss@mozilla.org https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
