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Brendan Eich: New JavaScript Engine Module Owner

85 points by pufuwozu 15y ago

keyle 15y ago
Is that likely to have a significant impact on the way we write Javascript today?
- wmf 15y ago
  No. JavaScript is (now) important enough that no one person has that much influence over it.
  - samth 15y ago
    This is, somewhat surprisingly, not true, especially if you're just considering the language proper. There are about 15 people who are regular members of the committee, and some of them end up having a big influence. Brendan is a prime example; his language design taste and leadership matter a lot. There are certainly other examples. Dave Herman, also at Mozilla, has been the lead on a whole host of things, from extending iterators and generators to the design of the new module system, which I worked on as well. Tom Van Cutsem and Mark Miller created the Proxy system. Outside of pure JS, the designers of WebGL/Typed Arrays and WebWorkers have both had big impacts. Ultimately, even on a committee, individual people can make a big impact.
- BrendanEich 15y ago
  SpiderMonkey and Mozilla as a whole have a mission-based commitment to implement draft standards, so to the extent that we have prototyped Proxies, WeakMaps, generators, let, and other extensions now approved for "ES.next", the module has influence. Upstream of it is the Ecma TC39 process, about which I spoke recently: http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/txjs-talk http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/txjs-talk There are a number of influential people on the committee. It's a committee, the economics make this inevitable. But we have pretty good core group of people who work on the standard and try to serve JS as a programming language, not as a techno-political bargaining chip or mere means to a business-agenda end.
aquarius070287 15y ago
Any reason for doing so..
- BrendanEich 15y ago
  See comments, stay tuned. And really, was I supposed to go on for life? :-P
  - mrspeaker 15y ago
    We were hoping so!
  - emil0r 15y ago
    It's called benevolent dictator for life for a reason ;).
Raphael 15y ago
From the title, I thought there was a new engine, but it's a new owner.
tingley 15y ago
The end of an era, no matter how minor a procedural change this is. The impact that Eich has had on the average computer user is unimaginable to me. Thanks, Brendan.

85 points by pufuwozu 15y ago

keyle 15y ago

Is that likely to have a significant impact on the way we write Javascript today?

wmf 15y ago
No. JavaScript is (now) important enough that no one person has that much influence over it.
- samth 15y ago
  This is, somewhat surprisingly, not true, especially if you're just considering the language proper. There are about 15 people who are regular members of the committee, and some of them end up having a big influence. Brendan is a prime example; his language design taste and leadership matter a lot. There are certainly other examples. Dave Herman, also at Mozilla, has been the lead on a whole host of things, from extending iterators and generators to the design of the new module system, which I worked on as well. Tom Van Cutsem and Mark Miller created the Proxy system. Outside of pure JS, the designers of WebGL/Typed Arrays and WebWorkers have both had big impacts. Ultimately, even on a committee, individual people can make a big impact.
BrendanEich 15y ago
SpiderMonkey and Mozilla as a whole have a mission-based commitment to implement draft standards, so to the extent that we have prototyped Proxies, WeakMaps, generators, let, and other extensions now approved for "ES.next", the module has influence. Upstream of it is the Ecma TC39 process, about which I spoke recently: http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/txjs-talk http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/txjs-talk There are a number of influential people on the committee. It's a committee, the economics make this inevitable. But we have pretty good core group of people who work on the standard and try to serve JS as a programming language, not as a techno-political bargaining chip or mere means to a business-agenda end.

aquarius070287 15y ago

Any reason for doing so..

BrendanEich 15y ago
See comments, stay tuned. And really, was I supposed to go on for life? :-P
- mrspeaker 15y ago
  We were hoping so!
- emil0r 15y ago
  It's called benevolent dictator for life for a reason ;).

Raphael 15y ago

From the title, I thought there was a new engine, but it's a new owner.

tingley 15y ago

The end of an era, no matter how minor a procedural change this is. The impact that Eich has had on the average computer user is unimaginable to me. Thanks, Brendan.