Comment by slightlyoff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slightlyoff | Hacker News Reader

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Hi Matthew,

So, first, it's not the mark of failure for their to only be a high or low-level version of some capability in the platform; at least not immediately. The issue arises when, having exposed one or the other, we [users|vendors|spec-authors] think the job is done.

It's like saying you've got a map of a continent having mapped either the outer shoreline or the inland lakes. It's a nonsensical thought, but it's where we tend to leave things today.

Your brought up AppCache -- which, as it happens, is a topic near and dear to my heart as I'm currently trying to engineer its low-level explanation: https://github.com/slightlyoff/NavigationController.

AppCache had relatively well-known, overwhelming deficiencies early in life...yet instead of attempting to peel the onion and explain the layers below the manifest format, the spec process rewarded piling into the clown-car of declarative configuration. It's the natural thing to do, after all.

What we're after here is _connecting_ the high and low levels. Creating a fully descriptive map that has texture, color, and major features marked and named.

We must always start somewhere, but we must also be anxious to know and describe what we can sense but can't yet explain. And that requires a sense of urgent investigation.

And THAT is what is missing today.

Regards

I'm afraid I still don't understand what you're getting at.

> What we're after here is _connecting_ the high and low levels. Creating a fully descriptive map that has texture, color, and major features marked and named.

A low level AppCache API doesn't exist though. So there is no connection to happen, right? I realize people wish AppCache had been designed differently. I wish Touch Events had been designed differently. The web is littered with mistakes, I don't think a manifesto is going to prevent them from occurring.

What is the essence of this manifesto? I read it as favoring low level APIs. Ideally we could have both but there aren't the resources to make that practical.

This misunderstands what happens inside implementations. There ARE low-level bits "down there", but they aren't spec'd. That what the Navigation Controller is: a spec for the low-level bits.

As a part of that process (and Web Components before it), the goal isn't to throw out what has come before (we don't get that luxury out here on successful, non-proprietary platforms), but to re-cast it in the light of a lower-level thing that explains it.

You can go the other way too. Noodle on this to get a sense for it: how much of the <audio> element can be implemented with some JS and the Web Audio spec? Since those connections make sense, why isn't <audio> spec'd in terms of Web Audio, such that you can plug in/out the bits you need when you need something slightly different?

So you are saying that the low level bits should eventually be spec'd (but not necessarily first)? That is what this manifesto is about? If so, I can agree with that, but wish it was more explicitly stated in the manifesto.

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