Re: Place under sun (was: XPointer and Sun patent)

[Alexey Gokhberg <alexei@bluewin.ch>]

Hello

> 
>  Alexey Gokhberg wrote:
> 
> >... the only *general purpose* programming language supported by
> >this specification is privately owned (and, strictly speaking,
> >non-standard) Java ...
> 

Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:

> ... there is one common
> factual error here. ECMAScript, aka JavaScript, is not Java and is
> not owned by Sun Microsystems or any other company. It is an official
> standard of the European Computer Manufacturers Association. Version
> 2 (though not yet version 3) was approved by the ISO as well using a
> fast-track process. See http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/stand/ecma-262.htm
> ...

Yes, I know. 

I had implemented ECMA-262 myself, and I love both the language and the
specification.

ECMA-262 is the bright example, showing how to write really good public,
vendor-neutral specifications. (As the result, today there exist several
ECMAScript implementations in various languages: Java, C, and C++).

However, I do not consider ECMAScript a *general purpose* programming
language, since it is lacking many features that every general purpose
language should provide. 

Therefore, I think that my original statement is correct.

--------------

By the way, I think that the present specification for ECMAScript
binding in DOM Level 2
(http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/ecma-script-binding.html) is
still very unprecise. Consider, for example, the following passage:

"... The Node class has the following constants ..."

It is Java having "classes" and "constants", not ECMAScript. 

On the other hand, completely missing is information which is vital for
the precise implementation of ECMAScript binding (there is no
specification of Constructor objects, specification of Prototype
objects, specification of internal properties like [[Class]],
[[Prototype]], ..., specification of attributes like { ReadOnly,
DontEnum, DontDelete } for every built-in property, etc.)

I leave alone the specification of ECMAScript binding in DOM Level 1
(http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1/ecma-script-language-binding.html),
which is a true nightmare. I can hardly beleive that authors of this
specification had ever seen ECMA-262 text. (What about the "unsigned
long" data type in ECMAScript ?)

As the result, I had to write my own (unperfect, I know) specification
for DOM binding when I implemented DOM support for my ECMAScript
interpreter. It was a hard job, wich I could avoid if there were an
acceptable specification from W3C ...

Kind regards,

Alexey