| 02:56 | <littledan> | (any syntax sugar proposals, I should say; for example module declarations are new syntax but the point is they provide a new capability) |
| 02:57 | <bakkot> | no |
| 02:59 | <littledan> | anyway, the exma secretariat DOES archive slides at the end of every meeting |
| 03:01 | <jschoi> | You mentioned on Friday at TG5 that it could be worth studying pipe syntax’s effects on developers again. Or maybe studying other syntax-sugar proposals for TG5. Do you figure any of that still might be worth doing? |
| 03:03 | <littledan> | bakkot: do you feel like ?. Was a mistake in retrospect? Or like we already did the highest value ones? |
| 03:10 | <bakkot> | second thing |
| 03:10 | <bakkot> | that was probably someone else? unless you mean some previous TG5 meeting. I wasn't able to make this one. |
| 03:11 | <jschoi> | Ah, sorry, I must have misremembered. Thinking harder, it was probably Michael Ficarra instead. |
| 03:17 | <bakkot> | and to be clear, I don't mean to express 100% confidence that there's not some equally valuable sugar waiting to be found. I just don't really expect this to be the case; most of the really good ideas, including optional chaining, have been tossed around for a long time. also "accessing a property of an object only if it's present" is one of the most frequent and (previously) annoying things you do when writing JS and so was almost uniquely ripe for sugar. by contrast there's a lot more low-hanging fruit for standard library stuff. stuff like |
| 03:29 | <bakkot> | like, we should have a priority queue, we should have some sort of concurrency primitives, we should have debounce, we should be able to shuffle arrays, we should have seedable RNGs, we should be able to sort numerically without having to remember how to write the custom comparator for that |
| 03:30 | <bakkot> | there's a lot of stuff |
| 03:48 | <jschoi> | I did plan on bringing debouncing back after https://github.com/tc39/proposal-function-helpers was rejected for being too broad. Maybe I should have focused first on debouncing, rather than demethodize and pipe functions. It hadn’t occurred to me that debounce would be particularly less controversial as low-hanging fruit. I wonder if any of the others would be the same. |
| 03:50 | <bakkot> | debouce will be controversial because it has a timer in it |
| 03:50 | <kriskowal> | Debounce does touch the “timers” rail, but if you anticipate that argument, I’m sure you can find a path. |
| 03:50 | <bakkot> | possibly the right path is doing it in whatwg instead |
| 03:51 | <kriskowal> | Or accept a now arg. |
| 03:51 | <bakkot> | alternatively you could start a long process fight about whether we care more about the "no timers in the language" constraint some delegates have than the "make the language actually useful for developers" goal |
| 03:51 | <jschoi> | Oh, yeah, I had forgotten… |
| 03:51 | <bakkot> | which would be worth doing but I have no stomach for it |
| 03:51 | <bakkot> | maybe people would accept it being normative optional |
| 03:54 | <Ashley Claymore> | Has seeded random gone through a tg3 review? |
| 03:56 | <bakkot> | I think its last activity was prior to tg3 existing |
| 03:57 | <jschoi> | TG3’s repository doesn’t have any search results for “random” or “seed”. I’m interested in pursuing seeded random later if someone doesn’t beat me. |
| 03:57 | <jschoi> | Speaking of process fights, I saw in https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/292#issuecomment-2682983190 that annevk wanted “at least one conversation with TC39 to have happened” for WHATWG Observables. “It's a big enough new language-like feature that explicitly getting their feedback is important.” But I’m not sure if that means he would like the proposal’s authors to present it as a TC39 plenary topic. |
| 03:59 | <bakkot> | https://github.com/tc39/proposal-seeded-random is the existing proposal; I believe TabAtkins hasn't had time to work on it but would plausibly appreciate help |
| 03:59 | <bakkot> | I left some random comments in issues a while ago and I think with those incorporated it would probably be ready to advance |
| 03:59 | <bakkot> | yeah I know ljharb at least was also annoyed it went through WHATWG |
| 04:00 | <kriskowal> | Would love to discuss. |
| 04:04 | <jschoi> | With regard to Anne’s comment, has TC39 ever “commented on” or “reviewed” a WHATWG proposal, like how TAG has done? |
| 04:04 | <bakkot> | not that I can recall |
| 04:09 | <TabAtkins> | I left some random comments in issues a while ago and I think with those incorporated it would probably be ready to advance |
| 04:11 | <TabAtkins> | And yeah, the proposal predates tg3 afaik |
| 04:17 | <kriskowal> | Do not be so sure. I will tell my new Math(seed) joke at every opportunity. |
| 04:17 | <littledan> | not that I can recall |
| 04:19 | <littledan> | We should probably do something to reduce the risk that someone could interpret TC39 delegates’ input on proposals as being from TC39 generally. Like by demonstrating some good constructive examples where TC39 as a whole gives input on something. |
| 04:45 | <kriskowal> | I would expect missives of TC-39 to other standards bodies to be a product of plenary. |
| 05:40 | <Rob Palmer> | @jschoi on Observables, Dominic Farolino has asked to present at the April 2025 TC39 meeting so this is on a promising path. |
| 05:40 | <Rob Palmer> | We messed up on logistics/scheduling in the Oct 2024 meeting else this conversation would have happened earlier. |
| 06:16 | <Rob Palmer> | Kris Kowal: Should we have something akin to a "positions repo" with updates blessed by plenary? I guess it would be more like "committee feedback on external things" given we're not inflicting a verdict, but more expressing suggestions that external groups would not be obligated to follow. |
| 06:27 | <kriskowal> | I’m not sure. The status quo is individual delegates representing their own positions and relaying perspectives of other delegates to the best of their knowledge, which can be confusing and ambiguous. We would have to be careful about what signals and commitments an official position provides regarding TC-39s own specs. |
| 06:28 | <kriskowal> | “Tentative Communications of TC-39” |
| 06:47 | <rkirsling> | I guess even if it boils down to individual opinions, "this issue was raised to TC39 and $person expressed the following feedback" is better than "we asked $person about this issue because they're part of TC39" |
| 07:49 | <Rob Palmer> | I suspect there would be times we could say a committee position has consensus (to provide a clear steer), and times where we could cite individuals having differing opinions. |
| 07:56 | <Rob Palmer> | Kris, it's interesting that you mention we need to be careful about such statements because they could also have consequences on our own work. It is already the case today where individuals can make unqualified statements that may be inferred as impactful committee positions. What we are missing is the other side of that coin. |
| 07:57 | <Rob Palmer> | Having a venue/repo to document current positions could also allow us to be clear on things that are widely held vs contentious. |
| 11:42 | <littledan> | I've gotten a number of "cold" emails recently from people on Discourse asking me to champion a proposal that they are interested in, and I know others have received the same request from the same person, in at least one of these cases. I'm not so interested in the ideas presented, but I don't want to be too discouraging. I don't think we should encourage community members to try to "break through" to the committee by soliciting the support of a committee member in this spammy way. I'm not sure what to do about this, how to respond to the emails, or if we should make some kind of outlet for people if they feel like Discourse isn't enough to get their idea considered. |
| 15:30 | <bakkot> | Discourse is the canonical place; I have been redirecting people back there |
| 16:07 | <snek> | do we have policy for meeting hosting wrt discrimination and local laws? I searched around the github repos a bit but I might have missed it. I ask in particular due to yesterday's memo from the us secretary of state regarding visas... |
| 16:16 | <bakkot> | I don't think we have policy although IIRC we've talked about it before, can't remember when |
| 16:17 | <bakkot> | I think in the context of individual US states? |
| 16:17 | <ryzokuken> | we discussed it last time when considering hosting in Texas |
| 16:17 | <ryzokuken> | adjacent to the OpenJSF event |
| 16:20 | <Chris de Almeida> | sounds a bit like: https://github.com/tc39/Reflector/issues/106 |
| 16:45 | <littledan> | this is literally an impossible problem to solve, given that some people are unable to leave the US, and others are unable to enter. (and this is affecting standards participants currently) |
| 16:45 | <littledan> | it's very sad. I don't know what to do (besides continue hybrid) |
| 16:46 | <littledan> | when you say "back there" do you mean when you get similar emails? I guess I can just write that redirection once and keep sending it... |
| 16:46 | <littledan> | maybe we could document somewhere that you shouldn't spam all the TC39 delegates... |
| 16:47 | <nicolo-ribaudo> | Do you have any link to what you mean by "some people cannot leave the US"? On Friday I walked in front a Microsoft office in Vancouver, and I was thinking that it'd be nice for example to have the in-person NA meeting there rather than always in Seattle |
| 16:47 | <bakkot> | I've only gotten such an email once but yes |
| 16:47 | <littledan> | it's well-documented that US trans people are having trouble getting passports renewed. |
| 16:48 | <bakkot> | (or obtained in the first place) |
| 16:48 | <littledan> | and it's not like you can get around it by using the wrong gender, you just flat-out can't get it |
| 16:49 | <littledan> | anyway we aren't going to solve this by having all conferences in the US, as that would exclude non-US trans people, who are being banned from entering |
| 16:49 | <littledan> | (as well as tons of other people who can't get visas) |
| 16:50 | <ryzokuken> | I currently see no reason why the Trump admin won't expand these travel bans further |
| 16:50 | <Michael Ficarra> | maybe we could document somewhere that you shouldn't spam all the TC39 delegates... |
| 16:53 | <Michael Ficarra> | for the record, I've only gotten one of these unsolicited proposals and it was actually something reasonable that someone put a lot of work into, so not really "spam" |
| 16:55 | <bakkot> | I think email every delegate is spammy, even if you've put a lot of work in, in the same way that sales emails blindly going out to every startup is spammy even when the product being sold has had a lot of work put in |
| 16:56 | <bakkot> | also I really don't want to encourage this behavior in general |
| 16:56 | <bakkot> | if we tell people that the discourse is the correct forum, which we do, then we absolutely shouldn't allow people to go around that |
| 16:56 | <bakkot> | that's privileging people who are choosing to ignore the stated rules |
| 16:56 | <snek> | it's very sad. I don't know what to do (besides continue hybrid) |
| 16:57 | <bakkot> | reflector I think |
| 16:58 | <nicolo-ribaudo> | The problem with discourse is that for many delegate discourse is just a place to redirect people so that we don't actually have to listen to them. How many of us are active there? 5? |
| 16:58 | <Michael Ficarra> | if we tell people that the discourse is the correct forum, which we do, then we absolutely shouldn't allow people to go around that |
| 16:58 | <Michael Ficarra> | or even otherwise good proposals that are not really a good fit |
| 16:59 | <Michael Ficarra> | The problem with discourse is that for many delegate discourse is just a place to redirect people so that we don't actually have to listen to them. How many of us are active there? 5? |
| 16:59 | <bakkot> | if people start sending all their proposals to email then everyone will ignore those too |
| 16:59 | <bakkot> | the reason they're ignored is because the proposals are mostly bad, which you can't change by changing the forum |
| 16:59 | <Michael Ficarra> | if people start sending all their proposals to email then everyone will ignore those too |
| 17:00 | <bakkot> | yyyyeah I really don't think that's gonna be the case |
| 17:00 | <nicolo-ribaudo> | I now wish we had a breakout session at the last plenary to go through discourse and explain why those proposals are bad |
| 17:00 | <bakkot> | also many proposals are high-effort and also bad |
| 17:00 | <littledan> | are there any good ones? |
| 17:00 | <littledan> | (I haven't been reading Discourse) |
| 17:00 | <bakkot> | also also many proposals aren't obviously bad, but I'm not really interested in championing them, like https://es.discourse.group/t/comments-in-template-literals-comment/2304/6 |
| 17:01 | <bakkot> | and I don't really know how to respond to those |
| 17:01 | <bakkot> | I do try to respond to the definitely-not-viable ones but I don't consistently manage it |
| 17:01 | <Michael Ficarra> | I now wish we had a breakout session at the last plenary to go through discourse and explain why those proposals are bad |
| 17:02 | <Michael Ficarra> | are there any good ones? |
| 17:04 | <bakkot> | anyway if we think the discourse isn't working I'd be OK with telling people they can email delegates directly, but as long as we're telling people to use the discourse I definitely don't want to filter for the people who are going around that (cf https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html ) |
| 17:12 | <ptomato> | I could see the community spinning this as "in coordinated effort, TC39 delegates angrily unload on community forum" or something |
| 18:23 | <jschoi> | Could the breakout session be framed as “TC39 gives feedback on Discourse proposals” rather than “TC39 picks bad proposals on Discourse and makes replies on why they’re bad”? It could be a systematic “position-writing” process that could add to a “community-proposal-positions” document…or maybe https://github.com/tc39/rationale or https://github.com/codehag/documenting-invariants. Like how WebKit and Mozilla give standard positions. |
| 18:27 | <jschoi> | Of course, this means that some Discourse proposals will be received positively or neutrally rather than negatively yet will have no champion available for it. But that’s still probably better than the status quo; it’d still give a persistent reference list of TC39 signals that anyone can point the community to, before they write a new proposal. The list of Stage-0 proposals on tc39/proposals is somewhat like this but is restricted to proposals that committee champions have presented. |