Web Docs

# Michael Lewis (6 years ago)

tl;dr Maybe there needs to be an official blog? And/or summarize decisions on MDN?

With the advent of transpiling, the state of the ES language is in greater flux than ever before. This group guides the development of the language itself. Then there are the implementers of your specifications. I won't pretend to know how it works, but it's safe to say, "it's like trying to hit a moving target." While standing on a moving platform.

When Andrea Giammarchi just wrote a post here showing an example of extending the native Array "class", I wasn't aware that was even possible/recommended.

I found an article from 2015 the other day, and scoured at it's age. "This is worthless! Nothing from 2015 is still valid today." It's very common to discover some new syntax, and not really know what it is. Is it a babel plugin? TypeScript? ES9000? Where can I use it? When should I use it?

If this is the "official" JavaScript Steering Committee, then it would make sense that you should produce the authoritative documentation, and publish the authoritative announcements/reasoning.

For example, when TC39 decided to remove properties from classes, there should have been an announcement. It seems like many people disagree with this decision (myself included).

The MDN web docs are trying to be the go to place for all things web. Yet, I still google, "can i use es6 classes" to find browser compatibility info. Because MDN has already dissected "all the things" (they have navigation and pages for all the topics you might discuss), documenting certain design decisions on their site might make the most sense. Maybe you just start with a TC39 Design Notes sub page that can be added in various places.

We should condense, summarize, and publish the enormously complex work that is going on in these back channels. Basically, extract the most important stuff. Extract the signal from the noise, and share it in an official place.

What is this community's stance on documentation?

# Isiah Meadows (6 years ago)

Not on the committee, but IMHO that should be up to MDN rather than TC39. Also, you could look at the meeting notes, specifically the summaries of each meeting, to see what happened. Alternatively, someone could create a centralized resource of what each meeting decided. (I'd personally do it if I got a Patreon set up and got some funding to do it, to make up for the lost productivity elsewhere.)


Isiah Meadows me at isiahmeadows.com

Looking for web consulting? Or a new website? Send me an email and we can get started. www.isiahmeadows.com

# kai zhu (6 years ago)

fyi, mozilla recently created a webpage to publicize its position on open Web and Web-related specifications submitted to standards bodies like the IETF, W3C, and Ecma TC39 @ mozilla.github.io/standards-positions

the process to ask them for a position is to file a github issue @ mozilla/standards-positions/issues

rtff: mozilla/standards-positions/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Michael Lewis (6 years ago)

Interesting, thanks. I'll have to dig into it a bit more later.