javascript 2.0 release???

[John G Harris]

As John G Harris pointed in this thread:

ECMA tried so hard to keep the description away from any host
environment

I said that, and I said it because

a) it's true, and

b) that was the right thing for the ECMA committee to do.

that they have created an unique "language" wich:
1) doesn't have any means to accept any input
2) doesn't have any means to output results

ECMA 262 per se is a totally enclosed system "out of time and space".
This alone would be enough to say that "ECMAScript Language" is a wrong
term. ECMAScript is an abstract model description which *have* to be
extended to become a programming language.

I very definitely did not say that.

John

 

[VK]

VK writes

I very definitely did not say that.

It's OK: you hinted me, I put your hint into nice and clear wording.
This is how a real team works ;-)

P.S. Does anyone really think that ECMA-262 indeed can be implemented
as it is without internal or external (host) extensions? Without an
ability to serve instructions to the interpreter and without an ability
to see any output? (The latter actually is not so important because w/o
an ability to serve instructions there is not any output).
If no one thinks so than what's wrong with the statement: "ECMAScript
is an abstract model description which *have* to be extended to become
a programming language"?
Does anyone know *any* language without in/out mechanics? Did you look
through the history of programming languages starting from ALGOL...
actually you may start even from the Babage Machine (XIX century)? So
what can be a problem then with my definition?

 

[Michael Winter]

On 01/12/2005 22:14, VK wrote:

[snip]

P.S. Does anyone really think that ECMA-262 indeed can be implemented
as it is without internal or external (host) extensions?

Yes, of course. Would it be useful? No.

Have you ever read the specification that you try to deride so often? If
so, surely you'd have read:

A scripting language is a programming language that is used to
manipulate, customise, and automate the facilities of an
existing system.
-- sent. 1, par. 3, 4 - Overview

and perhaps the next two sentences?

In such systems, useful functionality is already available
through a user interface, and the scripting language is a
mechanism for exposing that functionality to program control.
In this way, the existing system is said to provide a host
environment of objects and facilities, which completes the
capabilities of the scripting language.

Notice that is states "the _capabilities_ of the scripting language".

Without an ability to serve instructions to the interpreter

What's that got to do with the /language/?

and without an ability to see any output?

Again, that is domain of the host, not the language.

[snip]

If no one thinks so than what's wrong with the statement: "ECMAScript
is an abstract model description which *have* to be extended to
become a programming language"?

Because you're failing to see the distinction between the language and
its environment. The former, in my eyes, only needs to specify the
constructs, data types, and their behaviour and grammar.

Does anyone know *any* language without in/out mechanics?

C and C++. I also consider Java not to, either. Unlike ECMAScript,
however, each of these have standard libraries which provide I/O amongst
many other things. ECMAScript expects the host to provide the equivalent.

[snip]

Mike