Renaming ECMAScript 4 for the final standard?
2008/3/23 Lemonade Smith <lemonadesmith at googlemail.com>:
The proposed ECMAScript 4 standard contains very different paradigms to the current JavaScript/ECMAScript standard. In my view, it is the equivalent of the changes between C and C++ - it's designed largely to be a revolution rather than a mere evolution of the current ECMAScript/JavaScript standard.
I agree that the language design currently known as "proposed ES4" is about as different from the language described by ES3 as C++ is from C, and should therefore have a separate name. I have taken this position publicly on prior posts to es4-discuss.
Further, by separating these efforts into separately named language efforts, those who favor large statically typed languages and those who favor small dynamic languages can self select into distinct efforts. The separate existence of C++ probably helped preserve the smallness of C for many years. Likewise, Common Lisp probably helped protect the smallness of Scheme. Both battles were ultimately lost, but defending these languages from featuritis for a few more decades was nothing to sneeze at.
Therefore I would like to propose that ECMAScript 4 (aka JavaScript 2) has a different name to minimise confusion and punctuate the difference between two languages with fundamentally different design decisions and paradigms. [...] Has this previously been discussed or is the current name set in stone?
Yes. I've only joined the process recently, but I've seen this argued about on the list and raised at the EcmaScript committee. From the tone of the discussions, I gather that these issues had already been argued about extensively with no hope of consensus. Everyone seems tired of the argument, and we each know where everyone stands, so I'm not sure there's much use in arguing further.
On Mar 23, 2008, at 8:08 PM, Mark S. Miller wrote:
2008/3/23 Lemonade Smith <lemonadesmith at googlemail.com>:
The proposed ECMAScript 4 standard contains very different
paradigms to the current JavaScript/ECMAScript standard. In my view, it is the
equivalent of the changes between C and C++ - it's designed largely to be a
revolution rather than a mere evolution of the current ECMAScript/JavaScript
standard.
(Don't feed the trolls.)
Further, by separating these efforts into separately named language efforts, those who favor large statically typed languages
ES4 is not statically typed, so...
and those who favor small dynamic languages can self select into distinct efforts.
... this is a false dilemma.
The separate existence of C++ probably helped preserve the smallness of C for many years. Likewise, Common Lisp probably helped protect the smallness of Scheme. Both battles were ultimately lost, but defending these languages from featuritis for a few more decades was nothing to sneeze at.
These analogies are weak and tendentious in my opinion. Let's try to
get back to premises and argue forward. Can we start with why you
seem to believe that ES4 is statically typed?
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 6:28 AM, Brendan Eich <brendan at mozilla.org> wrote:
(Don't feed the trolls.)
If that was in response to me, I'd rather not be called a troll and I don't really understand how my post was troll-like but nevertheless I apologise if it appeared that way - I wasn't aware my statements were controversial.
I did not realise that this has been discussed previously - I've had a search but can't find the discussion in the mailing list archives. Could someone please provide a link to the mailing list or to the wiki?
Many thanks.
L. Smith
On Mar 23, 2008, at 11:43 PM, Lemonade Smith wrote:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 6:28 AM, Brendan Eich <brendan at mozilla.org>
wrote: (Don't feed the trolls.)
Sorry, your name (nym?) and lack of known reputation in the
community, combined with what sounded like an echo of a "political"
document circulated last fall, suggested trollness. My mistake.
I did not realise that this has been discussed previously - I've
had a search but can't find the discussion in the mailing list
archives. Could someone please provide a link to the mailing list
or to the wiki?
doku.php? id=meetings:minutes_mar_21_2007#discussion_
The proposed ECMAScript 4 standard contains very different paradigms to the current JavaScript/ECMAScript standard. In my view, it is the equivalent of the changes between C and C++ - it's designed largely to be a revolution rather than a mere evolution of the current ECMAScript/JavaScript standard.
Therefore I would like to propose that ECMAScript 4 (aka JavaScript 2) has a different name to minimise confusion and punctuate the difference between two languages with fundamentally different design decisions and paradigms. Whatsmore, any name would be free of any trademark issues, unlike the name JavaScript, and could become a widely used name for the standard, unlike ECMAScript.
Has this previously been discussed or is the current name set in stone?
-- L Smith