ECMAScript and Internet Explorer
October 31, 2007 at 10:43 am
Filed Under Mozilla, Technology
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Chris Wilson, the Platform Architect for IE (and generally a reasonable fellow) has put up a short post on the IEBlog on ECMAScript 4. I’ll quote it in its entirely since it is nearly gnomic in its brevity:
ECMAScript 3 and Beyond
There have been a number of blog posts recently about JavaScript developments, e.g. Gabriele Renzi’s “ECMAScript 4, the fourth system syndrome“. For ECMAScript, we here on the IE team certainly believe that thoughtful evolution is the right way to go; as I’ve frequently spoken about publicly, compatibility with the current web ecosystem - not “breaking the Web” - is something we take very seriously. In our opinion, a revolution in ECMAScript would be best done with an entirely new language, so we could continue supporting existing users as well as freeing the new language from constraints (including the constraint of performantly supporting scripts written in the old language). My colleague Pratap (our representative on the ECMAScript Technical Committee) with the JScript team, just posted on their blog about some work they’ve done on this topic. We’re also very interested in feedback from JavaScript web and framework developers on their thoughts about their needs and the future of the language.
I gather from Chris’ post that, while they aren’t going to out and out say so, it is very unlikely that IE will support ECMAScript 4 in IE8 (or perhaps even beyond that). I find that to be too bad. I’m pretty opinion neutral on ECMAScript 4 as a standard as I don’t know a lot of the ins and outs and am not that terribly great of a Javascript Commando. I am pretty positive on the idea of the web continuing to evolve and doing so in a way that embraces new standards. The alternative is that the web continues to evolve but does so in a partisan way not based on standards. I don’t think the net will discontinue its state of constant change, as inconvenient as that may be for the IE team and its plans for global domination through “not breaking the Web” and freezing us at 2001 (joke!).
If the Internet is going to change and develop anyway, they might as well get on the train with everyone else and support standards that people get together and agree on. Otherwise, IE runs the risk of their browser share simply eroding away as the rest of the world moves forward. Of course, many of us are pretty convinced that this is going to happen anyway and it isn’t a bad thing. The problem here is that as long as IE comes with an operating system that has the majority of the market, it is still going to be the 500 lb. gorilla sitting sullenly in the corner.
Update for 10/31: Chris Wilson has posted a much longer personal response today to the accusations by various parties that IE is trying to stop the web from moving forward. It is worth a read.
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14 Responses to “ECMAScript and Internet Explorer”
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All original work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Gnomic - good word.
Al, I agree with you wholeheartedly about the web, and specifically even the scripting language of the web, evolving. (Continuing to evolve? Restarting to evolve?). My point IS, in fact, around partisanship and ES4.
And I saw the title of your last post, “Lunch with the Dean” and clicked on it expecting something else. :)
Yeah, I realized after I posted that someone might read it as “Lunch with Dean” (as in Dean Hachamovitch, the head of IE).
I get points for using “gnomic” and “brevity” in posts. It’s like blog bingo.
As to your agreement about moving languages forward and the web, I understand your point of view to some degree but I also wonder if you and the IE team, as a whole, are in agreement. Have there been proposals in what IE would like to do in moving these things forward from the IE6 implementation, which is where IE is largely at right now?
Come on, Al, it’s been a year and a half since you left. You don’t really know where IE is right now, only where IE7 is right now. :)
That’s right. You know why that is? Because the IE team refuses to communicate with anyone on what they have been doing for the last year or what they are doing in the future. Makes it a nice blank canvas to look at past behavior or current comments from people in bodies and project.
I know from people in the company and ex-IE people that not a lot went on for a while after IE7 shipped that was working towards a shipping product but you guys need to actually start talking to people if you don’t want people to fall back on the “Microsoft is trying to control the web (to our detriment)” mentality… Seriously.
Oh, by the way, we’re shipping a Firefox 3 Beta soon. Can you comment on when an IE 8 (or IE 7.5) Beta will be released?
> You don’t really know where IE is right now, only where IE7 is right now. :)
Keep digging your hole. :)
Speaking of Firefox 3, I’ve been using the alpha exclusively for the past couple of months without a [critical] problem. It’s fun to stumble upon new features each day, today’s build changed the favicon’s appearance so that it looks more like part of the UI. Recently full-page zoom was added, I only found it by accident a few days ago.
One of my favourite features though, is the ability to ’search’ instantly in the address bar.
I’m impressed with Firefox’s stability and reliability.
“Oh, by the way, we’re shipping a Firefox 3 Beta soon. Can you comment on when an IE 8 (or IE 7.5) Beta will be released?”
$5 says we get IE8 announcements and/or info within 2 days of the FF3 beta.
Is the IE codebase really as messy as I’ve heard (unsubstantiated rumour from a friend of a friend at the moment)? And if so why don’t Microsoft just use Gecko and add their own Chrome (NiH withstanding)?
Since I’ve recently been (vaguely) threatened with comments that I may be violating my Microsoft NDA with my insider posts about IE, I must refuse to comment about what I know about the codebase. I’m not a code jockey though so it would be all impressions from having worked with developers and logged bugs over many years in IE.
As to why Microsoft won’t use Gecko, from their point of view, why would they use someone else’s software that isn’t under their control?
Yes, I saw the NDA comment - sounds like a diversion to get you to keep quiet, :(
Fair comment about the codebase, and I don’t think anyone would be surprised by internal bug metrics given the public ones :)
Thank you for your attempts to get the IE team to discuss IE8 more widely - something even Dave Massy seems to have trouble doing .. unfortunately my confidence in IE8 is already shattered so it will always be ‘that other browser that we’ll fix last’.
Keep Al quiet? Umm, no.
I’m not sure if that’s possible.
I should be clear to everyone that I consider Chris a friend of mine. We’ve worked together at two different companies and were both on IE during IE4 together. While I may give the IE team crap about various things or have various desires for openness or communication, it isn’t a personal issue with anyone there, especially Chris.
Yup - understood, but I am harsh sometimes with my friends too, especially when I believe they may be doing the wrong thing .I think it is fairly widely understood that Chris isn’t responsible for every decision made by the IE team. It is just unfortunate that he is currently the public face. Sorry if I gave the impression that I either thought it was personal or that it should be - it’s business it should *never* be personal.
And given the fairly widespread reaction to the post, I guess we can all understand why they don’t post more information on IE8 as no matter what they post you can be fairly confident they’ll get slammed by someone. I’d still like to know though so I can make decisions, or start to, for the future - at the moment I have to consider decisions based on IE7 even thought it won’t be the targetted platform :(