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I wish this contained a delta between the previous release and this release. It's difficult to find the differences just by skimming. Edit: apparently I hadn't

I wish this contained a delta between the previous release and this release. It's difficult to find the differences just by skimming. Edit: apparently I hadn't realized that the changes were so few that what was in the outline really did cover everything. I thought it was a summation. My fault. That being said I continue to be disappointed in the built-in standard library of JavaScript. As far as I can tell ECMAScript 2017 also has zero plans for incorporating useful libraries for file IO or sockets (currently both are provided through different APIs by node or the browser). This really needs to happen.

rtpg 10y ago
Yeah, though jQuery has helped a lot to make some sort of "standard library", requirements in the browser (small file size) makes it really hard to bootstrap a "standard library for JS". I would love for browsers and other VMs (well, Node) to aim for Python-level standard library that would be integrated into the VM. We could get a bunch of functionality without having to ship 3 Meg files to everyone. Here's a proposal: FF starts building a "standard library for Javascript". Developers can start using it, or provide polyfills for the bits they use through a special script tag like: <script src="std-lib-poyfill.js" standard-lib-polyfill></src> So FF would know not to pull it in but other browsers would know. Maybe a version number/point release in there too. There might be a bit of competition between browsers but I think we could quickly reach a consensus on most things. ... Though I guess this is what standards are for. I would like to see a browser try this anyways, though. That would be the fastest way to get the standards bodies to acknowledge the problem.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > Yeah, though jQuery has helped a lot to make some sort of "standard library", jQuery is mostly a better library for dealing with the DOM though. It has support for making network calls but those don't work in node without polyfills. > Though I guess this is what standards are for. I would like to see a browser try this anyways, though. That would be the fastest way to get the standards bodies to acknowledge the problem. I mean fetch exists and is an HTML 5 standard that's fairly decoupled from the DOM, unlike XMLHttpRequest. But it has to also work in node.js. I wrote a set of HTTP methods in my msngr library that works in both node.js and the web browser but it feels like a hack. I want my language to have first class networking and file io.
  - aviraldg 10y ago
    Did you try isomorphic-fetch?
    - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
      No; node and the browser provide APIs that do this already they're just very different so I simply wrapped them to avoid dependencies (it was pretty easy). But I knew of it and it's a good idea.
- yoshuaw 10y ago
  > I would love for browsers and other VMs (well, Node) to aim for Python-level standard library (...) Node has a cultural disliking for big standard libraries, preferring to delegate to the package manager instead. If anything the API might shrink further, not get added to.
ZenPsycho 10y ago
Javascript doesn't need and shouldn't have a "Standard Library". Javascript isn't python or c. It's more like Lua: It's meant to be embedded inside an application, and the application provides all the interfaces you need. If you start trying to include things like file i/o in the base language, you're never going to satisfy all the very different requirements of code running in a browser vs. running on a server. If file I/O had been standardised years ago, with API designed by server programmers the browser would be saddled with lousy synchronous stuff that hangs the browser UI, opens up a thousand security issues, and bloats the language with stuff that's pointless for purposes that aren't web browsers or servers. If you think the web platform lacks something what you do is take it up with the W3C or WhatWG who are in charge of deciding what APIs the application exposes. if you want node to match the browser or vice versa, write a library. Finally the biggest and best reason to not do this is that, once you put something in javascript (or a web browser for that matter), you can never ever take it out no matter how badly designed it is, without breaking something. At least with an external library abstraction you can switch to a better designed library. Javascript and the web is an open platform. not a closed platform. The web browser itself provides a MASSIVE standard library that includes everything from a UI and text layout engine, to a standard graphics drawing library, a standard file io library, and plenty of other stuff you'd have to build from scratch in python or ruby. Don't undersell that.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > Javascript isn't python or c. It's more like Lua: It's meant to be embedded inside an application, and the application provides all the interfaces you need. I couldn't disagree more. JavaScript started out that way but today (really the past 6+ years) it's used in identical use cases as Python in addition to being embedded into web browsers. > If you start trying to include things like file i/o in the base language, you're never going to satisfy all the very different requirements of code running in a browser vs. running on a server. You don't need to. Provide the basic capabilities that all languages provide, restrict what isn't possible when it's embedded into an environment. Keep it simple. > If file I/O had been standardised years ago, with API designed by server programmers the browser would be saddled with lousy synchronous stuff that hangs the browser UI, opens up a thousand security issues, and bloats the language with stuff that's pointless for purposes that aren't web browsers or servers. This is very unfair. What's "years ago"? The asynchronous patterns used in JavaScript date back to well over a decade ago and JavaScript wasn't really used elsewhere until node.js. I'm not sure I would consider any standard APIs as "bloat" either. This just looks like a baseless attack. > Finally the biggest and best reason to not do this is that, once you put something in javascript (or a web browser for that matter), you can never ever take it out no matter how badly designed it is, without breaking something. Same goes for all programming languages and their standard libraries. This is why you target specific versions. This is a solved problem. > Javascript and the web is an open platform. not a closed platform. So is Python. C++. C#. etc.
BurningFrog 10y ago
The diff is very small, unless this document from January is outdated: http://www.2ality.com/2016/01/ecmascript-2016.html http://www.2ality.com/2016/01/ecmascript-2016.html
- neogenix 10y ago
  No that is still correct. It is this line from the 'overview': "This specification also includes support for a new exponentiation operator and adds a new method to Array.prototype called includes."
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  Yeah I thought I was misreading things with how little changed. I guess the move to yearly really makes a difference there.
disordinary 10y ago
Package management and bundling is so good now I don't see it being a benefit to force us into one way of doing things. The great thing about javascript is flexibility.
espadrine 10y ago
I concur; I wish for a delta to be made more explicit as a non-normative section. I added concise explanatory additions to the spec here: http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2016/ http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2016/. Currently, the changes for ES2017 are the following: http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2017/ http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2017/. File I/O means different things in different contexts. If implementing JS required a file system to be present, it would not be possible to implement a spec-compliant JS in some environments. But specs are already worked on elsewhere, such as the File API: https://w3c.github.io/FileAPI/ https://w3c.github.io/FileAPI/. They obviously have very specific constraints, as the Web has a restrictive security model compared to downloaded executable binaries. That said, some level of convergence with Node.js would be welcome, starting with the now fragmented module loading mechanisms: var f = require('file') vs. import * as f from 'file'.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > If implementing JS required a file system to be present, it would not be possible to implement a spec-compliant JS in some environments. Maybe? I think it would be really interesting to open that up for the web browser to a degree. It would need some sort of permission model but providing more, standard libraries that can interact with the system would make web applications more viable in certain types of projects (especially corporate). Sure that opens it up to major, major security concerns but nothing that can't be overcome. But even so it could be part of the standard that certain pieces can become restricted when deployed into certain environments. > That said, some level of convergence with Node.js would be welcome, starting with the now fragmented module loading mechanisms: var f = require('file') vs. import * as f from 'file'. That would be awesome though this has been a known issue for quite a long time now and no one seems to really want to do much about it so I'm not sure what kind of effort it's going to take to make this happen.
kensai 10y ago
From the outline's description: "ECMAScript as defined here is not intended to be computationally self-sufficient; indeed, there are no provisions in this specification for input of external data or output of computed results. Instead, it is expected that the computational environment of an ECMAScript program will provide not only the objects and other facilities described in this specification but also certain environment-specific objects, whose description and behaviour are beyond the scope of this specification except to indicate that they may provide certain properties that can be accessed and certain functions that can be called from an ECMAScript program."
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
irrational 10y ago
But, wouldn't including file IO in JS lead to massive security problems in the browser?

rtpg 10y ago

Yeah, though jQuery has helped a lot to make some sort of "standard library", requirements in the browser (small file size) makes it really hard to bootstrap a "standard library for JS". I would love for browsers and other VMs (well, Node) to aim for Python-level standard library that would be integrated into the VM. We could get a bunch of functionality without having to ship 3 Meg files to everyone. Here's a proposal: FF starts building a "standard library for Javascript". Developers can start using it, or provide polyfills for the bits they use through a special script tag like: <script src="std-lib-poyfill.js" standard-lib-polyfill></src> So FF would know not to pull it in but other browsers would know. Maybe a version number/point release in there too. There might be a bit of competition between browsers but I think we could quickly reach a consensus on most things. ... Though I guess this is what standards are for. I would like to see a browser try this anyways, though. That would be the fastest way to get the standards bodies to acknowledge the problem.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> Yeah, though jQuery has helped a lot to make some sort of "standard library", jQuery is mostly a better library for dealing with the DOM though. It has support for making network calls but those don't work in node without polyfills. > Though I guess this is what standards are for. I would like to see a browser try this anyways, though. That would be the fastest way to get the standards bodies to acknowledge the problem. I mean fetch exists and is an HTML 5 standard that's fairly decoupled from the DOM, unlike XMLHttpRequest. But it has to also work in node.js. I wrote a set of HTTP methods in my msngr library that works in both node.js and the web browser but it feels like a hack. I want my language to have first class networking and file io.
- aviraldg 10y ago
  Did you try isomorphic-fetch?
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    No; node and the browser provide APIs that do this already they're just very different so I simply wrapped them to avoid dependencies (it was pretty easy). But I knew of it and it's a good idea.
yoshuaw 10y ago
> I would love for browsers and other VMs (well, Node) to aim for Python-level standard library (...) Node has a cultural disliking for big standard libraries, preferring to delegate to the package manager instead. If anything the API might shrink further, not get added to.

ZenPsycho 10y ago

Javascript doesn't need and shouldn't have a "Standard Library". Javascript isn't python or c. It's more like Lua: It's meant to be embedded inside an application, and the application provides all the interfaces you need. If you start trying to include things like file i/o in the base language, you're never going to satisfy all the very different requirements of code running in a browser vs. running on a server. If file I/O had been standardised years ago, with API designed by server programmers the browser would be saddled with lousy synchronous stuff that hangs the browser UI, opens up a thousand security issues, and bloats the language with stuff that's pointless for purposes that aren't web browsers or servers. If you think the web platform lacks something what you do is take it up with the W3C or WhatWG who are in charge of deciding what APIs the application exposes. if you want node to match the browser or vice versa, write a library. Finally the biggest and best reason to not do this is that, once you put something in javascript (or a web browser for that matter), you can never ever take it out no matter how badly designed it is, without breaking something. At least with an external library abstraction you can switch to a better designed library. Javascript and the web is an open platform. not a closed platform. The web browser itself provides a MASSIVE standard library that includes everything from a UI and text layout engine, to a standard graphics drawing library, a standard file io library, and plenty of other stuff you'd have to build from scratch in python or ruby. Don't undersell that.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> Javascript isn't python or c. It's more like Lua: It's meant to be embedded inside an application, and the application provides all the interfaces you need. I couldn't disagree more. JavaScript started out that way but today (really the past 6+ years) it's used in identical use cases as Python in addition to being embedded into web browsers. > If you start trying to include things like file i/o in the base language, you're never going to satisfy all the very different requirements of code running in a browser vs. running on a server. You don't need to. Provide the basic capabilities that all languages provide, restrict what isn't possible when it's embedded into an environment. Keep it simple. > If file I/O had been standardised years ago, with API designed by server programmers the browser would be saddled with lousy synchronous stuff that hangs the browser UI, opens up a thousand security issues, and bloats the language with stuff that's pointless for purposes that aren't web browsers or servers. This is very unfair. What's "years ago"? The asynchronous patterns used in JavaScript date back to well over a decade ago and JavaScript wasn't really used elsewhere until node.js. I'm not sure I would consider any standard APIs as "bloat" either. This just looks like a baseless attack. > Finally the biggest and best reason to not do this is that, once you put something in javascript (or a web browser for that matter), you can never ever take it out no matter how badly designed it is, without breaking something. Same goes for all programming languages and their standard libraries. This is why you target specific versions. This is a solved problem. > Javascript and the web is an open platform. not a closed platform. So is Python. C++. C#. etc.

BurningFrog 10y ago

The diff is very small, unless this document from January is outdated: http://www.2ality.com/2016/01/ecmascript-2016.html http://www.2ality.com/2016/01/ecmascript-2016.html

neogenix 10y ago
No that is still correct. It is this line from the 'overview': "This specification also includes support for a new exponentiation operator and adds a new method to Array.prototype called includes."
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
Yeah I thought I was misreading things with how little changed. I guess the move to yearly really makes a difference there.

disordinary 10y ago

Package management and bundling is so good now I don't see it being a benefit to force us into one way of doing things. The great thing about javascript is flexibility.

espadrine 10y ago

I concur; I wish for a delta to be made more explicit as a non-normative section. I added concise explanatory additions to the spec here: http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2016/ http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2016/. Currently, the changes for ES2017 are the following: http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2017/ http://espadrine.github.io/New-In-A-Spec/es2017/. File I/O means different things in different contexts. If implementing JS required a file system to be present, it would not be possible to implement a spec-compliant JS in some environments. But specs are already worked on elsewhere, such as the File API: https://w3c.github.io/FileAPI/ https://w3c.github.io/FileAPI/. They obviously have very specific constraints, as the Web has a restrictive security model compared to downloaded executable binaries. That said, some level of convergence with Node.js would be welcome, starting with the now fragmented module loading mechanisms: var f = require('file') vs. import * as f from 'file'.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> If implementing JS required a file system to be present, it would not be possible to implement a spec-compliant JS in some environments. Maybe? I think it would be really interesting to open that up for the web browser to a degree. It would need some sort of permission model but providing more, standard libraries that can interact with the system would make web applications more viable in certain types of projects (especially corporate). Sure that opens it up to major, major security concerns but nothing that can't be overcome. But even so it could be part of the standard that certain pieces can become restricted when deployed into certain environments. > That said, some level of convergence with Node.js would be welcome, starting with the now fragmented module loading mechanisms: var f = require('file') vs. import * as f from 'file'. That would be awesome though this has been a known issue for quite a long time now and no one seems to really want to do much about it so I'm not sure what kind of effort it's going to take to make this happen.

kensai 10y ago

From the outline's description: "ECMAScript as defined here is not intended to be computationally self-sufficient; indeed, there are no provisions in this specification for input of external data or output of computed results. Instead, it is expected that the computational environment of an ECMAScript program will provide not only the objects and other facilities described in this specification but also certain environment-specific objects, whose description and behaviour are beyond the scope of this specification except to indicate that they may provide certain properties that can be accessed and certain functions that can be called from an ECMAScript program."

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

irrational 10y ago

But, wouldn't including file IO in JS lead to massive security problems in the browser?