Catfight ! Er, Foxfight ! Well, Javascript Fight
The CTO of Mozilla and the platform architect for Microsoft's Internet Explorer are engaging in a little war of words over the format for the next version of the Javascript language. Microsoft's Chris Wilson wants to see an entirely new language supersede the existing version; Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich wants to supercharge the existing version.
"As I've frequently spoken about publicly, compatibility with the current web ecosystem -- not 'breaking the Web' -- is something we take very seriously," Wilson wrote on the Internet Explorer team blog this week. "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."
Meowww. Since Mozilla's Eich is the creator of JavaScript, his opinion carries a lot of weight; but his complaints about Microsoft's concerns about the compatibility issues of the new language with the existing language seem focused on personality and not substance. Microsoft's worry that the new version proposed by Mozilla might not be interoperable with all the script that is already out in the world seems like too important a concern to ignore. Some advice for Eich: If your new version of Javascript doesn't work because you don't like proprietary software, that's a large mob of people that will appear at you virtual doorstep with pitchforks and torches. Please don't blow up the internet. I'm using it.
"As I've frequently spoken about publicly, compatibility with the current web ecosystem -- not 'breaking the Web' -- is something we take very seriously," Wilson wrote on the Internet Explorer team blog this week. "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."
...Writing on his blog in response, Eich accused Wilson of spreading lies.
"You seem to be repeating falsehoods in blogs since the Proposed
ECMAScript 4th Edition Language Overview was published, claiming
dissenters including Microsoft were ignored by me, or 'shouted down' by
the majority, in the ECMAScript standardization group," Eich wrote.
"Assuming you didn't know better, and someone was misinforming you, you
(along with everyone reading this letter) know better now. So I'll
expect to see no more of these lies spread by you."
Meowww. Since Mozilla's Eich is the creator of JavaScript, his opinion carries a lot of weight; but his complaints about Microsoft's concerns about the compatibility issues of the new language with the existing language seem focused on personality and not substance. Microsoft's worry that the new version proposed by Mozilla might not be interoperable with all the script that is already out in the world seems like too important a concern to ignore. Some advice for Eich: If your new version of Javascript doesn't work because you don't like proprietary software, that's a large mob of people that will appear at you virtual doorstep with pitchforks and torches. Please don't blow up the internet. I'm using it.
