

ECMAScript 5 is an ECMA standard (despite IBM, Intel voting no) - ejs
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es-discuss/2009-December/010215.html

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gruseom
How much of this stuff is coming from real-world need, and how much from
_ideas about_ how programming _ought_ to be? I have a strong impression of the
latter.

There is a revealing phrase in the blog post linked to elsewhere in this
thread (<http://ejohn.org/blog/ecmascript-5-objects-and-properties/>):
"Property descriptors (and their associated methods) is probably the most
important new feature of ECMAScript 5. It gives developers the ability to have
fine-grained control of their objects, _prevent undesired tinkering_ , and
maintaining a unified web-compatible API." [italics added]

"Undesired tinkering" is the very essence of what made the web the web. These
perennial efforts to add restrictions, control, lock-down, etc., seem to me
rooted in a failure to understand this. Had these people been in control all
along, there would never had been a web in the first place.

Every time I encounter this mentality, I refresh myself by re-reading Adam
Bosworth's classic polemic in favor of the simple and sloppy:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=447086>

------
ejs
If you want to read the standard: [http://www.ecma-
international.org/publications/standards/Ecm...](http://www.ecma-
international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm)

~~~
nmcfarl
It took reading these summaries to get me in the mood for a big spec in the
morning :)

ECMAScript 5 <http://blogs.gnome.org/xan/2009/05/23/ecmascript-5/>

ECMAScript 5 Objects and Properties
<http://ejohn.org/blog/ecmascript-5-objects-and-properties/>

Make sure to read the comments on ejohn's blog - they are quite useful.

------
vicehead
I wonder what this means for Douglas Crockford's "Good parts" subset and
JSLint?

Those were islands of sanity and beauty in the ocean of raw sewage aka the
browser environment.

In any case, I don't see this as evolutionary nor revolutionary. The benefits
are non-existent, the hassles too many to enumerate. This feels like something
a jobless and clueless government would do.

------
mdasen
The title maybe should say ECMAScript 5 since I think a lot of us won't
recognize ES5 as JavaScript.

