For clarification in my earlier message, when I say "asked by these developers", I'm speaking of members of browser development teams.
Cheers, - Bill On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 11:08 AM, William Edney <[email protected] > wrote: > I'd like to chime in here as this is a pet peeve of mine. > > In general, I'd say that the ECMAScript working group and engine vendors > have done a better job at handling this than the other Web-related > technologies groups (in particular, the DOM working group). In specific, > I'm thinking of how the ECMAScript group handed 'non-strict' / 'strict' vs. > the DOM group's heavy-handed attempt to change Attributes to not be Nodes > and the fallout from that for me and my company's product. > > The core problem, in my opinion, stems from this misguided attempt to > 'telemeter' the Web and then use that as justification for removing > features. This is all fine and dandy if you only ever live in the 'Internet > world', where folks do monthly, if not daily, releases but many of us > don't. We are building Web apps (*lots and lots* of Web apps) for > enterprises who have a firewall that your telemetry will never measure. > This code was built long ago, its developers donned their white hat and > rode into the sunset a while back and it's expected usable lifetime is > measured in years, not months. > > When asked by these developers when I expect that they can remove these > features, my answer is: "think years... maybe decades." We're working in > environments where we're replacing mainframe systems that were written when > Jimmy Carter was president (apologies to non-US citizens here, that > would've been in the late 1970's). The customers we're doing the work for > expect that the "new" systems are going to last as long, unrealistic though > that may be. > > Here's another way to think about it: *Java* API evolution speeds. > > My 2 cents. > > Cheers, > > - Bill > > On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 10:47 AM, Ethan Resnick <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > To the extent that the web is used for applications, this is probably >> OK, but for documents this is really a bad approach because we (well at >> least some of us) want those to continue to be readable as the web evolves. >> >> Sure, I can appreciate that. And the academic/researcher in me definitely >> likes the idea of never removing a language feature. >> >> I guess I was just asking in case anyone felt there could be some (very, >> very low) level of breakage that's tolerable. After all, links/images >> already go bad pretty regularly and removing bits of JS wouldn't make the >> web the only medium for which old equipment (here, an old browser) is >> required to view old content. On that front, print is the remarkable >> exception; most everything else (audio recordings, video recordings, >> conventional software) is pretty tightly bound to its original technology. >> Of course, "other mediums suck at longevity too" isn't much of an argument, >> but if there's a tradeoff here, maybe it's worth keeping in mind. >> >> Regardless, it seems like there are many less radical approaches that >> deprioritize old features without making them strictly unavailable, so I'm >> still curious to know about JS churn rates, if that data exists, to get a >> sense of the timescale for those approaches. >> On Nov 10, 2015 6:58 AM, "Boris Zbarsky" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 11/10/15 7:41 AM, Ethan Resnick wrote: >>> >>>> And how long until they could remove support for the rest of the >>>> language altogether? >>>> >>> >>> This makes the fundamental assumption that it's OK to break old things >>> just because they're old. To the extent that the web is used for >>> applications, this is probably OK, but for documents this is really a bad >>> approach because we (well at least some of us) want those to continue to be >>> readable as the web evolves. Otherwise we end up with a "dark ages" later >>> on where things that appeared in print continue to be readable while later >>> digital stuff, even if still available, is not. >>> >>> And in this case "documents" includes things like interactive New York >>> Times stuff and whatnot... >>> >>> -Boris >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> es-discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss >> >> >
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