RSSMicrosoft, Mozilla Disagree Over JavaScript's Future
By Ed Oswald | Published November 2, 2007, 4:23 PM
Mozilla and Microsoft are in the midst of a squabble over the future of JavaScript, with each side accusing the other of actions which could end up "breaking the Web."
The two companies each have their own respective versions of the common programming language that is used across the web: Mozilla backs ECMAScript, while Microsoft pushes its own JScript.
Much of the battle has been between Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich -- the creator of JavaScript -- and Microsoft Internet Explorer platform architect Chris Wilson. The two have traded barbs through their blogs over the past week.
Wilson started the tiff by suggesting that the next version of ECMAScript, version 4, may be too much of a change to the language itself to continue it as "JavaScript." Instead, he suggested that a completely new language be developed, because so much of the structure of the language would be changed.
"We could continue supporting existing users as well as freeing the new language from constraints (including the constraint of [permanently] supporting scripts written in the old language)," he wrote on Wednesday.
He continued this in his own personal blog on Thursday, adding that Microsoft has attempted to work with the ECMA committee, but Microsoft's concerns were being ignored, and ES4 development had turned into a "yes or no battle."
"I also think it's a shame that the response to any dissent has equated to shouting the dissenters down. The string of blog posts over the last week, and the immediate and somewhat incendiary comments from ES4 proponents, has been a good example of that," he wrote.
Eich nearly immediately took issue with Wilson's comments, accusing Wilson of spreading "falsehoods." He argued that everything that ECMA had done with ES4 had been done in the open, and Microsoft has had a chance to speak up, but had stayed mostly silent.
"At best, we have a fundamental conflict of visions and technical values between the majority and the minority," Eich wrote.
He also accused Microsoft of leaving JScript stagnant once it had gained dominance in the browser industry, and that the Redmond company's "bugs to fix ... should not stall ES4 for one second."
Do we really want another "standard" put forth by microsoft? Look at OOXML - it would designed *around* MS' awful hodgepodge of functionality, and bugs/design flaws which they had no intention of fixing. So the rest of the community has to develop around MS' awful development methodology, even when it's not associated with any MS code??
Go away, MS. These are transparent attempts to hoist your problems on the rest of the world rather than deal with them.
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|"and bugs/design flaws which they had no intention of fixing."
...another one who thinks he knows all. Keep the prophecies and clairvoyance to the ESP forums, aye?
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|Microsoft have bullied around one too many standards orgs. It's time Microsoft played by the rules, and was forced to try to make superior software for following the rules, rather than to bend the rules.
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|What rules are they not playing by? The ones that say, "Microsoft has to let us do what we want, even if it means less market share for them"?
Because I've got news for ya... That ain't a rule, that's called whining. Did you see the Firefox crew whining like that? Nullsoft? No?
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|boo hooo
since when is the idea of microsoft stealing inventions for its own use new ?
or perhaps microsoft is too lazy to change its whole desktop apps to keep up(like everyone else is expected to do...) ?
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|Is it in Microsoft's interest to stall improvements in Javascript? Microsoft depends heavily on desktop applications. Enhancing the browser capabilities will improve web applications and further reduce the need to run anything but a good browser on your computer. How long before all many people will need is a web tablet and access to Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc.
The last thing Microsoft wants to see is the browser getting any smarter.
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|Stop spamming. What make you think everyone will jump on the Google boat. I bet, most of us here use Google search and gmail only. Their maps are also good, but live maps and yahoo maps are very promising too.
And one last point, which own limitation on broadboad upload, most of us still on 128kpbs or 384kpbs, I don't see any real interaction between users and servers any time soon.
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|That last point is changing rapidly. 20Meg up isn't unheard of anymore, and 1meg up is actually quite common in many major cities.
....maybe sooner than you think.
(I didn't mention Google once ...oops)
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|I think you meant trolling, not spamming. And try Google Earth (and Sky) sometime.
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|It's amazing that after ten years or more people still don't know the difference between JavaScript and Java!
Anyway, the main problem with client-side scripting languages is that unless the installed base is 100%, the language is useless.
Corporates turned Javascript off in their browsers for years and held back the development of "Web 2.0" applications.
Personally, I'd like to see a range of plug-in scripting languages for browsers, not just Javascript. PHP would be very handy as a client-side script, for example.
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|Is MS really trying to push JScript, or is it just trying to collaborate on and suggest features/design for ES4?
I haven't used JScript.NET, only JSCript through wscript, and it does really suck compared to JavaScript 1.2. However, since ES4 will, (for good or bad), be running 90% of the time on MS software they should have room to make suggestions concerning the new language and be heard on them.
IMHO, with todays dual and quad core systems becoming more and more common, maybe a stripped down .NET compiler in the browser would make more sense. It could allow for small programs written in languages like C#. It might prove to perform better than ECMAscript after a second or two compile time and it's language that really doesn't have anything to do with browsers, at least for now, so it could end any squabbling over standards. As a developer, I would love it.
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|What about those 1 mil sites whoes using javascript for over 10 years, and is it make any sance to have 2 script languages in browser so developers must chose "Do I wrote this on JS or XXX language ... hmmm I know JS.. well I am lazy/(no time to lose) this time to learn new langugae ...", and what is all that about "next version of ECMAScript, version 4, may be too much of a change to the language itself to continue it as JavaScript."? Microsoft do this all the time, and do not change language name or syntax, just delete classes and methods and make new ones so you can not run old apps on new platform. Aghhh, is it mater what I think as developer?
And what about Java. Java and Javascript are best choise for complex web sites
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|You are fired.
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|Hear, hear.
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|Here is a silly thought... how about leaving the decision to SUN and leave it PURE Java.
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|JavaScript is the implementation of ECMAScript that Netscape (and Mozilla following it) used. Java and JavaScript have nothing to do with each other.
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|Plus, Sun's Java implementation sucks balls. I always found Microsoft's JVM to be faster and more compatible.
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|Have You try Solaris ???
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|AGAIN. JAVA IS NOT JAVASCRIPT. You are not understanding this article so you really shouldnt comment on it before researching the difference between Java and JavaScript.
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|ECMAScript 3, which is predecessor of ES4 but more up-to-date than the current JavaScript running in Mozilla, Opera, Safari and IE has been donated to the next version of Mozilla by Adobe.
ES3 is much more object oriented instead of a mere prototype base language like JavaScript 1.2, hence it is more sophisticated in handling complicated UI tasks.
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|i'd like to know what specific contentions microsoft and mozilla are arguing over to decide for myself it they're "bugs" or issues. I'm on the EMCA side of things (bias wise)
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|ECMAScript is cross-platform whilst JScript isn't.
It's an easy one to see which one should be supported.
JScript has stagnated... and any reasonable website these days relies on ECMAScript and not the crappy offering from MS.
Get over it MS... it's about time you understand what standards are... and the joke around your bas****ization of ISO shows how little you do understand the process.
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|It's because other browser designed not to support JScript. IF ms decided to drop the ball on Javascript, it will becomes a dead language.
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|i remember microsofts java machine...yuck.
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|It's javaSCRIPT not regular java. There is a bit of a difference.
But you are right about their java machine.
Personally I hope it either dies off completely or gets rewritten to not be so invasive.
The noscript plugin is great for firefox by the way.
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|I have MS JVM runs much faster than Sun's JVM. Of course, we know how the story end, sun sued and won, so MS stopped the development of JVM.
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|Before Sun sued Microsoft, the Microsoft Java VM was considerably faster than Sun's own version. It took forever for Sun to release a quality Java VM for Windows.
As for Microsoft's Java VM, it already has died off.
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|I'd like to point out the fact that the Microsoft VM never made it past the 1.1 version, making it totally irrelevant for common uses of java, even back then.
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|they just renamed it to j# because they couldnt call theirs JAVA anymore. last time i checked, java didn't run terribly on windows anymore than microsofts JVM which wasn't great but had the distinction of not being awful which is where java really sucked at the time.
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|M-soft's ran faster, of course: they stripped the sandbox, and any other feature that was a tad harder to implement. Then, M-soft claimed tHE SUN version wasn't compatable. Of couse SUN sued.
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|Sun did this?
/ponders
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|Sun's modern Java releases are almost like spyware...if only it gave the option to NOT HAVE A FREAKING TRAY ICON WITH AUTOUPDATES during installation.
I wish I still had a standalone install of MS' JVM I could use. It was more compatable with the apps I used, in addition to the greater speed.
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|javascript is not java
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|javascript is not java
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|javascript is not java
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|javascript is not java
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