Albert said:
Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn said:
I have never read such a load of FUD crap.
[...] Just exactly what on that site do you consider FUD?
Take the ECMA stuff for example:
| JavaScript, aka Mocha, aka LiveScript, aka JScript, aka ECMAScript,
| is one of the world's most popular programming languages.
JavaScript is _not_ ECMAScript, it is and has always been,
Netscape(/AOLTW)'s implementation of the latter.[1] JScript
is *neither* JavaScript *nor* ECMAScript, it is *Microsoft's*
implementation of ECMAScript, as one could have also read in
the FAQ of this NG.[2]
AFAIS, Mocha is a Java decompiler[3] and such has nothing to
do with ECMAScript, JavaScript or other implementations of the
former at all.
| The ECMA committee that has stewardship over the language is developing
| extensions which, while well intentioned, will aggravate one of the
| language's biggest problems: There are already too many versions.
| This creates confusion.
ECMA does neither watch over JavaScript nor does it develop extensions
for it. ECMA International, as an "industry association [...] dedicated
to the standardization of information and communication systems[...]"[4]
where also Netscape/AOLTW and Microsoft are members of[5], watches over
ECMAScript. There are exactly 3 versions/editions of ECMAScript or
ECMA-262 right now: ECMAScript (Ed. 1), ECMAScript (Ed.) 2 and
ECMAScript 3, while only the first and the third are widely
implemented[6] (and only the third being available for download now[7]).
There are six JavaScript versions until now: JavaScript 1.0, JavaScript
1.1, JavaScript 1.2, JavaScript 1.3, JavaScript 1.4 and JavaScript 1.5.
Of those, versions other than 1.4 are implemented in Netscape browsers
(1.4 being implemented along with other versions as server-side
JavaScript in versions of the Netscape Enterprise Server; 1.5 in all
Mozilla/5.0 based browsers incl. Netscape 6+) and versions other than
1.2 are fully compatible with ECMAScript.[1] JavaScript 2.0 as
developed by Waldemar Horwat at Netscape/AOLTW is likely to become an
implementation of ECMAScript 4, currently implemented in Epimetheus only.[8]
Other implementations of ECMAScript include different versions of
Microsoft JScript, supported in M$ Internet Explorer and UAs that
use the IE browser component.[9]
| The design of the language on the whole is quite sound. Surprisingly,
| the ECMAScript committee does not appear to be interested in
| correcting these problems. Perhaps they are more interested in making
| new ones.
Quite sound to whom? What a problem must the author have with "evil"
ECMA not following his misguided attempts to tell us that
| JavaScript's C-like syntax, including curly braces and the clunky for
| statement, makes it appear to be an ordinary procedural language. This
| is misleading because JavaScript has more in common with functional
| languages like Lisp or Scheme than with C or Java.
Because it allows for closures, currying and anonymous functions? OMG.
Obviously the author has never found (or did not wanted to find?) time
to read the ECMAScript specification thoroughly (see below.)
| The official specification for the language is published by ECMA.
Wrong. The official specification for _ECMAScript_ is published by
ECMA. The official specification for JavaScript, if you can call the
Client-Side/Server-Side/Core JavaScript Guide and Reference this, is
published and has always been published by Netscape(/AOLTW) as *they*
are to implement ECMAScript as JavaScript.
| The specification is of extremely poor quality. It is difficult to
| read, and very difficult to understand.
Because the author is unable to read technical specifications, they must
be "of extremely poor quality." Well, there are at least two people (I
assume of one that he does because of his statements in this newsgroup)
that find it very well put and of good quality as recent research on
grammar productions has (again) proven.[10]
| This has been a contributor to the Bad Book problem because authors
| have been unable to use the standard document to improve their own
| understanding of the language.
As said before[11], technical specifications of programming languages to
be implemented are never meant to be understood easily by the average
programmer. They provide rules which implementors should obey if they
want to call their implementation conforming to one of the described
programming language.[12]
| ECMA and the TC39 committee should be deeply embarrassed.
Again an attempt of FUD only because the author lacks understanding
of the purpose of the specification and ECMAScript in general.
PointedEars
___________
[1]
http://devedge.netscape.com/library/manuals/2000/javascript/1.5/guide/intro.html#1013654
http://jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ2_6
[2]
http://jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ2_7
[3]
http://google.com/search?q=Mocha&filter=0
[4]
http://www.ecma-international.org/
[5]
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/associat.htm
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/ordinary.htm
[6]
http://devedge.netscape.com/library/manuals/2000/javascript/1.5/guide/preface.html#1003515
[7]
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm
[8]
http://mozilla.org/js/language/
[9]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/script56/html/js56jsoriJScript.asp
[10] <[11] <[12] ECMAScript Ed. 3, Page 1:
| 1 Scope
|
| This Standard defines the ECMAScript scripting language.
|
|
| 2 Conformance
|
| A conforming implementation of ECMAScript must provide [...]
|
| A conforming implementation of this International standard shall
| interpret [...]
|
| A conforming implementation of ECMAScript is permitted to provide
| [...]
|
| A conforming implementation of ECMAScript is permitted to support
| [...]
|
|
| 3 Normative References
| [...]