announcing normative ECMAScript specification in HTML

# Allen Wirfs-Brock (13 years ago)

Ecma International now hosts a normative HTML copy of Ecma-262, Edition 5.1 The ECMAScript Language Specification. The document includes a hyperlinked table of contents and supports external linking to sections listed in the table of contents.

The document may be accessed at ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1

This is a permalink to this specific edition. It should be used in any situations where there is a need to link to the normative version of the ECMAScript 5.1 specification. Future editions will received their own edition specific links.

A big thanks to Jason Orendorff for his essential contributions to the production of this HTML version of the specification.

Happy linking,

Allen Wirfs-Brock Ecma-262 Project Editor

# Brendan Eich (13 years ago)

That is the latest standard version.

You mean ES6 drafts?

# Allen Wirfs-Brock (13 years ago)

On May 24, 2012, at 11:03 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

Yay HTML, welcome to the nineties! ;-) We usually need to link to the latest version however, any chance of getting that?

www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm

is a gateway page that will always contain links to both the HTML and PDF version of the latest edition. That might be most appropriate for a ""latest edition" reference. But I would think that normative reference to specific specification subclauses need to be edition specific as both the subclause organization and the actual normative text is subject to change from edition to edition. If you tried to link to the "latest edition" at a granular level you would have no guarantee as to what you were actually linking to.

# T.J. Crowder (13 years ago)

That's fanTAStic about finally having a normative, deeply-linkable, HTML edition of the spec.

On 24 May 2012 19:13, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen at wirfs-brock.com> wrote:

On May 24, 2012, at 11:03 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

Yay HTML, welcome to the nineties! ;-) We usually need to link to the latest version however, any chance of getting that?

www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm

is a gateway page that will always contain links to both the HTML and PDF version of the latest edition

Yes, but given the significant (and welcome) effort to keep section numbers the same version-on-version, rather than having all links to 5.1 rot (e.g., become out of date) as of 5.2, it would be very useful to have pseudo-targets that represent:

  • The latest 5.x

  • The latest, period

So for instance:

ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1/#sec-4.3.2

...links to Section 4.3.2 of Edition 5.1, but

ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5/#sec-4.3.2

...links to Section 4.3.2 of whatever the latest 5.x is, and

ecma-international.org/ecma-262/#sec-4.3.2

...links to Section 4.3.2 of whatever the current standard is.

Separately, ideally, with not just section names, but semantically-intelligent targets. For instance, while it would be nice if

ecma-international.org/ecma-262/#sec-4.3.2

...always linked to the current Section 4.3.2, even better would be if

ecma-international.org/ecma-262/#primitive-value

...always linked to the description of "primitive value" (the current Section 4.3.2).

This is entirely "doable." A concept is unlikely to go entirely away (although terminology changes), and if it does, a link to a brief description of the fact it went away (or changed) would be useful.

If TC39 needs volunteers to come up with the set of semantically-intelligent targets, sign me up.

Best,

T.J. Crowder tj / crowder software / com www / crowder software / com

# Axel Rauschmayer (13 years ago)

Great! Suggestion: one file per chapter (faster, especially on mobile devices).

The TOC either in its own file or before the copyright information would be more convenient, too. I'd expect it to always be the starting point for browsing the spec.

[[[Sent from a mobile device. Please forgive brevity and typos.]]]

Dr. Axel Rauschmayer axel at rauschma.de Home: rauschma.de Blog: 2ality.com

# Jason Orendorff (13 years ago)

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Axel Rauschmayer <axel at rauschma.de> wrote:

Great! Suggestion: one file per chapter (faster, especially on mobile devices).

The TOC either in its own file or before the copyright information would be more convenient, too. I'd expect it to always be the starting point for browsing the spec.

Yes! I agree we want both all-one-page and chapter-per-page versions of the spec. I just want to point out that everyone is free to implement this. The code is here:

jorendorff/es-spec-html

It sounds easy. I wish I could commit to tackling it myself, but I feel I should probably focus on other things, like getting the table formatting right, which probably no one else wants to do.